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MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 



MAN'S SURVIVAL 
AFTER DEATH 

OR, THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE 

IN THE LIGHT OF 

SCRIPTURE, HUMAN EXPERIENCE, AND 
MODERN RESEARCH 



BY , 

CHARLES L. TWEEDALE 

VICAR OF WESTON, OTLEY 



NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






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PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED 
EDINBURGH 



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MY FATHER, DR THOMAS TWEEDALE ; 

MY GRANDFATHER, CHARLES COATES, ENGINEER ; 

MY GRANDFATHER, BENJAMIN TWEEDALE, MUSICIAN AND 

ASTRONOMER ; 

TO MY AUNT, LEAH COATES, WHOSE WONDERFUL MANIFESTATION 

FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD IS HEREIN RECORDED ; 

TO MY DEAR MOTHER, MARY TWEEDALE, WHOSE LOVE AND COUNSEL 

ARE STILL MINE ; 

AND TO ALL THOSE RELATIVES AND FRIENDS WHO HAVE 

PASSED OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE, AND 

BEING " DEAD " YET SPEAK, THIS BOOK 

IS DEDICATED BY THE 

AUTHOR 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 

It is my very pleasant duty to have to acknowledge my 
extreme indebtedness to the Society for Psychical Research 
for kindly permitting me to make use of their publications 
and to use the evidence so carefully collected and investi- 
gated by them. 

To the Editor and Proprietors of The Annals of Psychical 
Science for kind permission to reproduce the accounts of the 
experiences of Professors Richet, Morselli, and Lombroso, 
Doctors Agazotti, Herlitzka, and Foa. 

To Alfred Russel Wallace, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., for 
permission to make extracts from his autobiography. 

To Dr Joseph Maxwell for similar kindness with reference 
to his valuable work, Metapsychical Phenomena. To all 
others to whom in the preparation of this work I am in- 
debted for matter or information, and to Richard A. Bush, 
Esq., without whose encouragement this work would, in 
all probability, never have been published. 

Charles L. Tweedale. 

"]tk September 1909. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 

My further indebtedness I hereby gratefully acknowledge 
to Mr E. W. Wallis, late Editor of Light, and to Mr David 
Gow, the present Editor, for permission to quote from the 
pages of their journal, and for many kindnesses received. 

To Mr J. Lewis, Editor of The Psychic Gazette, for similar 
permission and kindness. 

To Sir William Crookes, the doyen of English scientists, 
to whose epoch-making psychic investigations the world 
owes a lasting debt of gratitude, and for whom I have the 
profoundest admiration. 

To Mr Gambier Bolton for permission to quote from his 
most interesting work on Materialisations. To Messrs 
William Rider & Son for permission to quote from Florence 
Marryat's There is No Death. To Mr Alfred Kitson for 
permission to quote from Smedley's Reminiscences. To Miss 
Estelle Stead for permission to quote the cases published 
by W. T. Stead. 

To Mr James Coates, Ph.D., for permission to quote from 
his excellent work, Photographing the Invisible. 

To Miss E. Katharine Bates for permission to quote from 
Seen and Unseen, and to Mrs Moore for kind permission to 
quote from the works of her late husband, Vice-Admiral 
Usborne Moore. 

Finally to all those who have directly or indirectly helped 
me, by their testimony or otherwise, to present to the world 
this evidence of the things that are spiritual and eternal, I 
tender my best thanks. 

Charles L. Tweedale. 

"]th September 1918. 



CONTENTS 

APTER PAGE 

I. CONCERNING THE OBJECT OF THIS WORK AND 

TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED . .II 

II. CONCERNING OUR FATHER'S HOUSE . . 15 

III. OF THE WITNESS OF CHRIST TO THE REALITY 

AND IMMINENCE OF LIFE AFTER BODILY 
DEATH . . . . .25 

IV. THE WITNESS OF THE APOSTLES . . 33 

V. OF THE CHRIST OF GOD AND OF HIS MISSION 
TO THE WORLD, AND THE PURPOSE OF HIS 
CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION . . 41 

VI. THE REALITY OF CHRIST'S RESURREC- 
TION AND THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE 
THEREFOR . . . . 5 1 

VII. OF HEAVEN, PARADISE, AND THE LIFE EVER- 
LASTING . . . . '59 

VIII. OF THE TWO BODIES AND THE NATURE OF MAN 73 

fIX. OF THE EXISTENCE AND OCCASIONAL MANI- 
FESTATION OF MAN'S SPIRITUAL BODY DURING 
HIS " NATURAL " OR MORTAL LIFE . . 78 

X. CONCERNING APPEARANCES OF THE SPIRITUAL 

BODY SHORTLY AFTER DEATH . 9 1 

XI. OF APPEARANCES OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY LONG 

AFTER DEATH . . . . Il8 

XII. CONCERNING APPEARANCES OF THE SPIRITUAL 

BODY IN FULFILMENT OF A COMPACT . 171 

XIII. INDICATIONS OF CONTINUED KNOWLEDGE OF 
AND INTEREST IN TERRENE AFFAIRS SHOWN 
BY THE DEPARTED . . . . I 84 



CONTENTS 9 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIV. EVIDENCE THAT THE SPIRITUAL BODY OFT 
LINGERS FOR A TIME ROUND THE SCENES 
OF EARTHLY LIFE . . . -194 

XV. CONCERNING THE FORETELLING OF EVENTS, AND 
INFORMATION GIVEN, BY APPARITIONS OF THE 
DEPARTED, AND ALSO BY COMMUNICATION 
TO MAN'S SPIRITUAL SELF DURING SLEEP . 226 

XVI. OF THE OBJECTIVITY AND EFFECTUAL REALITY 

OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY . . . 265 

XVII. CONCERNING THE RADIANCE OR LIGHT WHICH 
SOMETIMES ACCOMPANIES THE APPEARANCE 
OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY . . . 274 

XVIII. CONCERNING CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIR- 
AUDIENCE AND THEIR EVIDENCE FOR HUMAN 
SURVIVAL AND THE EXISTENCE OF THE SPIRIT 
WORLD ..... 284 

XIX. THE EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE . 306 

XX. THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION . . 333 

XXI. THE EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY . 387 

XXII. CONCERNING LEVITATIONS, PROOFING AGAINST 

FIRE, APPORTS, STRONG VIBRATIONS, AND 
OTHER PSYCHIC PHENOMENA . . 443 

XXIII. A FURTHER COMPARISON OF MODERN PSYCHIC 

PHENOMENA WITH THOSE RECORDED IN HOLY 
SCRIPTURE ..... 474 

XXIV. HISTORICAL EVIDENCE . . . 490 

XXV. THE EVIDENCE OF MODERN SCIENTISTS AS TO 

THE REALITY OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA . 505 

XXVI. THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION TOWARDS PSYCHIC 

PHENOMENA .... 533 

XXVII. CONCLUSION ..... 560 

INDEX . . . . . . 569 



Come ye yourselves apart and rest awhile, 
Weary — / know it — oj the press and throng. 
Wipe from your brow the sweat and dust oj toil, 
And in my quiet strength again be strong. 

Come ye awhile aside from all the world holds dear, 
For knowledge ivhich the world has never given. 
The brief hours are not lost in which ye hear 
More of your Master and his rest in heaven. 



CONCERNING THE OBJECT OF THIS WORK AND TO WHOM 
IT IS ADDRESSED 

And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some 
mocked : and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. 
— Acts xvii. 32. 

If a man die, shall he live again ? — Job xiv. 14. 

MY fervent desire, and the end and aim of these 
writings, is to bring the joy of the resurrection 
to those who either do not possess it, or see it so 
dimly and afar off that it affords no real consolation to the 
mind, but leaves them a prey to doubt and uncertainty. 

No apology is needed for troubling the reader on this 
subject, for it is a matter — on all hands acknowledged — 
of the supremest importance. 

Before we enter more closely upon the main questions 
let us consider for a brief space to whom this work is 
addressed. Someone may say : Oh ! to the careless, the 
indifferent, the sinner, the unbeliever. Yes, to all these — 
in that all are possessed of the Ego, the Conscious Person- 
ality, the Soul — but it is not for these only that this book 
is written, but also for those who profess and call them- 
selves Christians. 

Twenty-five years of work amongst all sorts and condi- 
tions of men, in the slums of crowded towns, in the villas 
of Suburbia, in the quietness of rural retreats, have con- 
vinced me that a more intense and living belief in the 
power of the resurrection and the reality of the life after 
bodily death is not only one of the most urgent needs of 
the age, but is needed ofttimes by good Christian folk quite 
as much as by those who are considered to be without the 
11 



12 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

pale. One cannot but be impressed by one point of differ- 
ence between the Christianity of to-day and that set forth in 
the Gospels and the History of the early Christian Church. 
In these the Resurrection, the life after death, which is 
the keystone of the gospel arch, is placed absolutely in the 
forefront. As exemplified in the person of Christ, it is the 
centre around which everything else revolves, the one fact 
up to which everything else leads, and to which every- 
thing is subordinated. 

In these days, following upon hundreds of years of preach- 
ing and exegesis, Christianity, as usually expounded and 
understood, is more a moral and ethical system for the 
regulation of conduct than a teaching to inspire one, either 
in the heyday of life or at the last hour, with the reality 
and imminence of life after death. I say " as usually ex- 
pounded and understood," for the reality of the Resurrec- 
tion and the imminence of the future life, as set forth both 
by precept and example, stand as plainly in Holy Writ now 
as on that day when the evangelists and apostles first gave 
their writings to the world. It has been my lot during the 
last twenty-five years to converse upon these things with 
Christians of all shades of belief, and rarely have I found 
that feeling of absolute certainty as to the future which 
should be the Christian's especial privilege. When pressed 
upon the subject there has almost always been revealed a 
harassing doubt which has found vent in such expressions 
as " I hope to live again," " I trust so," " We must believe 
that it is so," " What a blessed thing it would be if we could 
really know," " We have to live by faith," " No one 
has ever come back," and similar expressions, all showing 
the diffidence that lay behind the most sincere profession 
of religion. 

In fact, one finds that Christians of all shades of belief 
often labour under much uncertainty as to the reality and 
nature of the future life, while often do they mourn for 
their dead and refuse to be comforted, as though Christ 



THE OBJECT OF THIS WORK 13 

had never come upon earth to turn their sorrow into 
joy. 

This is not the result which Christianity was intended to 
produce. It is not the result Christianity did produce in the 
first three centuries, if human testimony bears any weight. 

As a clergyman I have stood by the side of very many 
dying persons. I have seen men " die hard," glaring at 
one in their death struggle. I have seen others of 
notoriously irregular life pass away in the " peace " of 
unconsciousness. 

But of those who have been conscious and able to con- 
verse I have seen few with that confidence which it is the 
chief end and aim of the Christian revelation to give. I 
say few because I have seen some who had a real grasp on 
the verities of the faith, and whose passing was a triumph 
over the materialism of the world, but even with these, 
their joy was often not the full joy, and their ideas of the 
future life were vague and indefinite. They would live 
again some day, of that they were assured. They would 
rise again in the " Last Judgment," and then receive the 
blessing and the kingdom, and in this, their standpoint 
seemed exactly the same as that of Martha. 

Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. 
Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in 
the resurrection at the last day. 

Dear souls, what a joyful awakening was in store for 
them. 

The one fact that stands out clearest in my clerical ex- 
perience is, that while Christianity still maintains its hold 
upon the world as a moral and ethical system, the verities 
of the Resurrection and the life after bodily death have 
lost the force they had originally, and which they were in- 
tended to have, and are at present partly obscured and 
relegated to a secondary place. A very brief investigation 
and questioning amongst those one meets in the daily 



14 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

round will convince the average man of the truth of this 
observation. 

It is therefore with the idea of restoring the sense of the 
reality and imminence of the life of the world to come to 
thousands of my fellow-men that I write this book. My 
work is evidential rather than controversial. The en- 
thusiastic votary of any particular shade of belief, the man 
of no belief at all, the man of " strong common sense," the 
materialist to whom there are no mysteries, all these may 
pour upon my devoted head the vials of their wrath. 

I shall pursue the even tenor of my way, well satisfied 
if I bring peace and confidence to the hearts of many whose 
faces I shall never behold. 



II 

CONCERNING OUR FATHER'S HOUSE 

In my Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, I 
would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. — John 
xiv. 2. 

Then said the Angel, " End there is none that we ever heard of. 
Height is lost in depth unfathomable, and depth is swallowed up 
of height insurmountable."- — -Richter's Dream. 

Along my path 
In front, it said, and backwards whence I came, 
Lie millions such as I, through endless realms 
Of star-strewn space. 

Voices of the Suns. 

IN spite of advancing knowledge certain old-world 
beliefs die hard, and there are still to-day vast 
numbers who have not cast off the old-world thought 
which made the earth the only sphere of material activities 
for sentient beings. Such ideas not only add immensely to 
the difficulties of a belief in spiritual existence and a future 
state — or where such belief is attained, dwarf the concep- 
tion of that state and its possibilities — but also rob those 
who hold them of that wider view of God's creative energy 
which is their inestimable privilege. To those who are 
still dominated by a narrow outlook, based on ancient 
cosmogonies, I dedicate this chapter. 

The belief almost universal in olden times, and one 
which was only shaken off by the minds of a few daring 
men, was that this earth was the " centrum," the very 
hub of the universe. Hence men made the sun revolve 
round the earth while the stars, according to Anaximines, 
were gold-headed nails driven into the crystaUine vault, 
like studs or spangles upon the ceiling of some vast room. 
Some such ideas as these must have filled the minds of 
men in the early ages of the world ever since our first 
parents stood in the Garden of Eden when the world was 
young, and gazed upon the glittering host of heaven. 

15 



i6. MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

These thoughts probably engaged the minds of the Babel 
builders on the plains of Mesopotamia, of the star wor- 
shippers in great Babylon, of the wondrous architects of 
the Pyramids, of the Magi in search of Him born King of 
the Jews, of the shepherds who watched their flocks by 
night, of Hipparchus and Ptolemy charting the stars and 
still believing that the sun moved round the earth. Only 
in comparatively recent times, dating from the days of 
Copernicus (1542), Galileo, and Kepler, has the true state 
of affairs become definitely known to mankind. Great 
intellects, ages in advance of their times, had glimmerings 
of the truth. . Aristarchus and Cleanthes, fifteen hundred 
years previously, had said that the earth revolved round the 
sun, and for this Cleanthes narrowly escaped impeachment 
and death for impiety, a fate which nearly befell Galileo 
in a later age. 

Pythagaros, with still greater intuition, had thought of 
the stars as centres of activity like our sun, and called 
them worlds, having the elements of earth, air, fire, and 
water. What a daring speculation this was we in the 
twentieth century can now realise when we consider that 
in his day all the sciences were in their infancy. As to 
the distances of these glittering watchers of the night men 
could only guess. 

Aratus, by a flight of imagination, probably reflected the 
utmost limits of speculation in his day when he says, in 
his Phainomena : 

A brazen anvil from high heaven hurled, 
For thirty days and thirty nights is whirled. 

But we now know that the fall of seven hundred and 
twenty hours, great as is the distance that would be covered, 
is a mere footstep on the journey in comparison with the 
awful reality. 

What are the facts ? 

It is only by a careful study of these that we can get 



CONCERNING OUR FATHER'S HOUSE 17 

any real idea of the nature of " Our Father's house," and of 
the possibilities lying before us in the future life. 

A very brief study of these verities will convince us that 
so far from our earth being the " centrum " and " the 
only place," it is as a grain of sand upon the ocean's shore. 
Let us therefore see what the science of astronomy has to 
tell us in these days concerning the distance, the magnitude 
and the number of the stellar host which go to make up the 
pillars of " Our Father's house." 

For ages the stars were looked upon as fixed and immov- 
able, and until the eighteenth century the utmost skill 
of man had not been able to detect any change of place 
in these glittering bodies, but after the invention of the 
telescope astronomy advanced by leaps and bounds, and 
speedy triumphs awaited her. In the year 1718 the 
famous astronomer and mathematician, Halley, began to 
suspect that the stars were not the fixed and immovable 
things that men had always deemed them, but as he had 
only naked-eye catalogues of stars to consult, his suspicion 
remained merely a suspicion, and it was left for James 
Cassini, by the aid of telescopic determinations, to establish 
beyond doubt that the bright star Arcturus had moved 
sensibly from its place, as determined by Richter at Cayenne 
in 1672. The ancient idea of the fixed stars was exploded, 
and those glittering points, which were supposed to be 
eternal in their permanence, were found to be all in motion, 
while astronomers were brought face to face with new 
problems. The reason that this motion of the stars had 
remained unseen and unsuspected for thousands of years 
was simply that the displacement was so small, even after 
the lapse of ages, as to produce no sensible disturbance of 
the constellation figures, while such motion as had occurred 
was in most cases far less than the errors of observation 
inseparable from the rude quadrants and sextants of the 
early astronomers. Hitherto no one had been able to 
obtain the slightest indication of the distance of any star ; 



18 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

nothing could be said of them save that their distances were 
apparently infinite. 

Now it soon became obvious that if a body at an appar- 
ently infinite distance was found to be in motion, such 
motion must be appallingly great — afterwards, as in the 
case of the star, Groombridge, 1830, this was found to be 
as much as three hundred miles per second, nearly one 
thousand times faster than the ball from a modern rifle — 
and it also began to dawn upon astronomers that our own 
sun, itself but a star in the heavens, might also be in 
motion bearing the earth and all the planets with it into the 
unknown. In the year 1760 Tobias Mayer took up this 
fascinating problem and discussed the motions of eighty 
stars. In his memoir upon the subject he indicated the 
principle upon which the sun's motion through space might 
be detected. "It is thus," says he, " that in a forest 
the trees to which we are approaching seem to open out, 
those which we are leaving seem to close up." 

In 1783 the acute mind of Herschel turned to this prob- 
lem, and he soon solved it triumphantly. He found that 
the sun was steadily journeying through space carrying 
the whole attendant body of planets and satellites towards 
the star A Herculis.* Repeated redeterminations have 
shown that in spite of the imperfect instruments and data 
at his disposal, the commanding genius of this great man 
had solved the problem at the first essay. Thus the 
science of astronomy tells us definitely that the sun is 
hurtling through space towards the constellation Hercules 
at the rate of some 150,000,000 miles per annum, or fifteen 
times more quickly than a rifle ball, and three hundred 
times as fast as the swiftest express train. This is quite 
the leisurely speed of an elderly gentleman amongst the 
celestial host. If our sun were the star Groombridge, 1830, 

* The most recent modern determination places the point towards 
which the sun is speeding as in Right Ascension, 17 h. 2 m. North 
Declination 25 . 



CONCERNING OUR FATHER'S HOUSE 19 

we should travel through space eighteen thousand times 
more swiftly than the Scotch express. Every star is in 
more or less rapid motion either laterally, as detected by 
astronomical measurement, or directly in the line of sight, 
as detected by the spectroscope.* 

Well may we ask ourselves : " Whence and whither are 
we journeying ? " 

I watched the depths of darkness infinite 
Till dreaming, I beheld 
A star come forth with even gliding rush 
And all the mighty meaning of a Sun. 

For ages upon ages has our sun been thus rushing on 
into the unknown. Out of the black depths to the rear 
and onwards, ever onwards, into the night of endless space. 

Endless space ! surely there can be no such thing ? 
Yes, the human mind, shrink as it may, must face this 
awful thought. Space is without beginning and without 
end, even as eternity, even as the Eternal God, who is over 
all and above all. 

A brief consideration of these facts will give the key to 
the changelessness of the appearance of the celestial vault 
during the past two thousand years. If the eye detects 
no change in thousands of years in the position of bodies 
moving with such appalling velocities, they must be plunged 
in the abysses of space to such awful depths that their 
movements, by virtue of the distance at which they are 
made, become as naught, and not only do the stars appear 
to unaided vision fixed and immovable, but have done so 
for ages ! f 

* Among the brighter stars— Vega, Arcturus, a Cygni, a Andro- 
meda^, and /3 Geminorum (Pollux) are rushing away from us at 
the rate of 49, 55, 39, 28 and 48 miles per second respectively, while 
Rigel, Castor, and Aldebaran are approaching at the rate of 15, 26, 
and 30 miles per second. 

f The sun's nearest neighbours in space, the stars a Centauri, 
61 Cygni, and Vega, the brilliant gem in the Constellation of the 



20 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

It is when brought face to face with these things that 
men feel their littleness in the presence of the Eternal 
God. The fearful meaning of the question addressed to 
Job comes upon one with all the weight of an avalanche : 

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 
Declare, if thou hast understanding, when the morning stars 
sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. 

And what adequate answer can the sons of men make 
except : 

What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of 
man that Thou visitest him ? 

Man would be crushed were it not for the gracious good- 
ness of the living God. 

Then rang 
A voice of solemn thunder through the spheres. 
Say rather, what is time or space to me, that thou shouldst 

deem mere mightiness of mass 
And plenitude of time can outweigh mind 
And soul ? Can worlds and Suns my power know ? 
Can aeons after Eeons sing my praise as man 
Gifted by me with power to know my power, can tell 
The meaning of the music of my spheres ? 

Uplift thy doubting heart, 

The least of all the minds my Will hath made 

Outweighs a full infinity of times ; 

The mightiest mere mass, the thoughts of human hearts 

Outvie the movements of a million Suns 

The rush of systems infinite through space. 



Lyre, lie at distances of 25,475,000,000,000, 38,362,500,000,000, and 
95,883,000,000,000 miles, while Canopus is plunged into the abyss 
to a depth of 640,000,000,000,000 (six hundred and forty millions of 
millions) of miles. The light of these stars travelling at the rate of 
nearly 200,000 miles a second takes 4-3, 6-5, and 16-27 years to cross 
the intervening space in the case of the first three, while the beams 
of Canopus only arrive on the earth after a journey of 108 years. 



CONCERNING OUR FATHER'S HOUSE 21 

Therefore, ye sons of men, sursum corda, lift up your 
hearts, and be not dismayed. 

Now it is manifest that a glittering body such as Canopus, 
which we know from human testimony has shone un- 
dimmed for thousands of years, and which is placed in the 
celestial vault at a distance of nearly six hundred and 
forty millions of millions of miles, must be of stupendous 
dimensions, in fact a mighty sun. By a careful com- 
parison of the light of these stars with the light of the sun, 
it is possible to arrive at the size of those whose distance 
is known. Alas for those who think that our little earth 
is the only place and the sun the only sun ; Canopus is 
found to be some six thousand times larger than our sun, 
while the star Capella, a conspicuous object of the northern 
skies, is four thousand times the size of our own " glorious 
orb of day." So far, therefore, from our earth being the 
only place, " the centrum," the hub of the universe, it is 
found to be by comparison a mere speck revolving around 
a tenth-rate star. 

As the result of the astonishing progress which the 
science of astronomy has made of recent years, we find 
moreover that not only is our earth not the only place, but 
that it is absolutely lost and swallowed up in an innumer- 
able multitude which no man can number. The number 
of the stars visible to the naked eye is comparatively 
small, less than seven thousand, but in Herschel's time 
it was known that the number visible in his great four- 
foot reflector approached sixty millions. Lord Rosse's 
giant six-foot added to the number. When the eye is 
reinforced by the slightest optical aid, a scene of bewilder- 
ing magnificence opens upon man's astonished gaze. But 
it is more especially bj^ photography that the richness of 
the universe is revealed in all its amazing splendour. There 
are many portions of the sky not much larger apparently 
than the moon's disc, and in which the naked eye can 
scarcely discern a single star, where the photographic eye 



22 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

can see and record thirty thousand glittering points, the 
whole background being one blazing mass. The sight of 
the heavens in the constellations Cygnus, Perseus, Cassio- 
peia, and Scorpio, through which the Milky Way passes, 
as viewed in a large telescope is one which invariably 
leaves a deep and lasting impression on the mind, the 
whole field of view in one gorgeous coruscation of sparkling 
gems, all sizes and all colours being presented to the gaze, 
while they are so numerous that in places they resemble 
a heap of glittering dust. 

Here hath the Creator sown the heavens 
Thick as a field. 

Sometimes mingled with the stellar host are mysterious 
filmy wisps of shining nebulosity, the primeval stuff of 
which the worlds are made. Careful examination of these 
nebulse shows them to be in various stages of condensation, 
and to be associated with stars and " star dust." From 
time to time there suddenly blazes out in the sky a new 
star, like that observed by Tycho Brahe in 1572, which for 
a brief period surpassed in brightness any star in the 
heavens and then gradually faded away ; or that new star 
in the constellation Aquila just lately observed, which 
equalled or surpassed Vega in brilliancy for a few days. 
These outbursts are proved by spectroscopic examination 
to be the result of the collision of two astronomical bodies 
(probably cold and "extinct") in the sky. The terrific 
force of the impact results in the gasification of the bodies, 
and gradually as the conflagration dies down a nebula is 
seen to be formed, sometimes with a small stellar nucleus. 
Here we probably get a glimpse of the death and rebirth of suns 
and worlds. 

Look Nature through. All to reflourish fades ; 
All change, no death. Day follows night, and night 
The dying day. Stars rise, and set, and rise again. 



CONCERNING OUR FATHER'S HOUSE 23 

When we consider that every glittering speck strewn on 
the blackness of the night is a body at a distance almost 
infinite, shining with all the mighty meaning of a sun, the 
sight of that host means such an awful range of creative 
power and actual existence as makes the mind reel and 
the spirit of man shrink within him. The international 
photographic survey plates will register nearly one hundred 
millions, but there are probably a thousand million suns 
within the reach of the most powerful photographic instru- 
ments of the day, and beyond these what ? 

Along my path 
In front, it said, and backwards whence I came, 
And all around, above, below my course, 
Lie millions such as I, through endless realms 
Of star-strewn space. There is no end to God's 
Dominion of suns and systems ruled by Suns, 
No end and no beginning through all space, 
But everlasting, mystic, wonderful, 
The song of us sounds ever round the throne 
Of Him who reigns supreme the Life of All. 

" No end and no beginning ! " Oh, awful thought and 
yet most true, for could we conceive a boundary, after 
millions of years of light journeying,* the human mind 
would straightway ask, what is there beyond the boundary 
line ? Just as space is limitless, so is duration or time, 
rolling on into eternity. These twain are comprehended 
alone of the Eternal God, which was and is and is to 
come. 

Thus has it been reserved for science, after twenty 
centuries of research, to confirm completely and wonder- 
fully the words of the Redeemer : 

In my Father's house are many mansions. 

* Light travels at the rate of 186,600 miles per second, or 
671,760,000 per hour. 



24 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

And to reveal to man the vastness of his inheritance and 
the infinite range of activities which, surely, lie in the 
beyond. There has he, if he will, an inheritance in- 
corruptible, undefiled, which never can fade away, for it 
is " eternal in the heavens." 



Ill 



OF THE WITNESS OF CHRIST TO THE REALITY AND 
IMMINENCE OF LIFE AFTER BODILY DEATH 

The Son of Man is delivered into the hands of men, and they 
shall kill Him ; and after that He is killed, He shall rise again the 
third day. — Mark ix. 31. 

There is no death. What seems so is transition ; 

This life of mortal breath 

Is but a suburb of the life elysian 

Whose portal we call death. 

Longfellow. 

TURN we first to the witness of Holy Scripture set 
forth in the New Testament, as of supreme interest 
and importance. This testimony divides itself 
into two parts : 

1. The Testimony of Christ. 

2. The Testimony of His Apostles. 

First in importance comes Christ's direct statement, 
that men do rise from the dead, and that they have so 
risen in the past. 

This pronouncement was made on the occasion of the 
questioning by the Sadducees. The reply is recorded by 
three of the evangelists. 

Matthew xxii. 29-32 : 

Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not know- 
ing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. 

For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in 
marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. 

But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not 
read that which was spoken unto you by God saying, 

I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the 
God of Jacob ? God is not the God of the dead, but of the 
living. 

25 



26 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Mark xii. 24-27 (vide also Luke xx. 35-38) : 

And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore 
err, because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power 
of God ? 

For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, 
nor are given in marriage ; but are as the angels which are in 
heaven. 

And as touching the dead, that they rise (lit., are revived) : 
have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God 
spake unto him saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the 
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? 

He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living : 
ye therefore do greatly err. 

Here we have the Christ's deliberate and careful 
statement on this all-important question. He tells us 
plainly : 

Firstly, that men do rise to life again after the death of 
the body. " Now that the dead are raised even Moses 
showed you " (Luke xx. 37). 

Secondly, that they have so risen in the past. 

Matthew xii. 32 : 

I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the 
God of Jacob. 

The whole tenor of the words of Jesus here indicates that 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were living at the time God 
spake to Moses. 

Christ emphasises and confirms this by saying, For he 
is not a God of dead men, but of living men (Swvtwv). Ye 
do greatly err. 

This is the power of the argument by which he confutes 
the Sadducees, and to attempt to read it in any other sense 
is to wilfully divert the plain meaning of words. Christ 
here deliberately tells the Jews that God is never a God 
of dead men, but always of living men, and that far from 



THE WITNESS OF CHRIST 27 

there being no return to conscious existence after the 
death of the body, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had so 
returned in Moses' day. 

Now that this is a true statement is manifest from 
the fact that at the Transfiguration on the Mount there 
were seen Moses and Elias, who had been dead for many 
hundreds of years — the former from a time almost coeval 
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — and these men, long 
since " dead," conversed with Christ concerning the events 
which were shortly to come to pass in Jerusalem, and were 
seen and heard by the chief apostles. 

Let us briefly examine the question which the Sadducees 
put to him and the nature of the controversy. 

The Pharisees believed both in angel and spirit, and in 
the resurrection from the dead, but their idea of the re- 
surrection was that it would take place in the distant 
future. Martha (who reflected the ordinary belief of the 
day) indicates this when she said of her brother : " I know 
that he shall rise again in the last day." 

The Sadducees, on the other hand, denied the existence 
both of angel and spirit, and utterly scouted the idea of 
any resurrection unto life again. This question is there- 
fore put in the terms of the Pharisaical belief, which they 
are seeking to discredit — i.e. the belief in the resurrection 
" in the last day," and is put in the future tense. Note 
their words. 

Matthew xxii. 28 : 

Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the 
seven ? 

Christ answers firstly in the tense in which it is put — i.e. 
in the future — and then goes on to refer to past instances 
of resurrection. 

In these few verses Christ plainly tells the Jews that the 
"dead " are raised, that they had been raised in the past 
and would be raised in the future — a continuous process — 



28 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

showing them at once the twofold error of their age in 
supposing (i) that the dead did not return to life at all 
(Sadducean), (2) that men did not return to life until the 
last day (Pharisaic), the popular idea then prevalent, and 
concluding with the words : 

For he is not a God of dead men, but of living men ; ye 
do greatly err. 

It is extraordinary how men seek to explain away the 
gracious words of Christ, and there are those who are so 
enamoured of the idea of ages of insensibility lasting until 
" the general resurrection in the last day " that they try 
their best to make Christ's words mean what, in their 
natural setting, they never can mean. 

They say that the meaning of Christ's discourse is : 
That God had been the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
during their mortal life, and would again be their God after 
the General Resurrection in the last day. But against 
this absurd wresting of plain language are the following 
statements and fact: — 

1. The direct statement of God : I am the God of 
Abraham. Not I was, or I shall be. 

2. The direct statement of Christ explaining and com- 
menting on this, " God is not a god of dead men, but of 
living men." 

3. The fact that Moses and Elias were seen with Jesus 
on the Mount of Transfiguration and heard talking with 
him as to coming events. 

If they were still " dead " in oblivion, awaiting " the 
General Resurrection in the last day," they could not have 
been seen living and risen, and talking on the mount with 
Christ. 

We now pass to the second great pronouncement of 
Christ as to the reality and nearness of life after bodily 
death, and one which was uttered under the most solemn 



THE WITNESS OF CHRIST 29 

circumstances conceivable. It is contained in Luke xxiii. 
39-43 : 

And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on 
him, saying, If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us. 

But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost thou 
not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation ? 

And we indeed justly ; for we receive the due reward of 
our deeds ; but this man hath done nothing amiss. 

And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou 
comest into Thy kingdom. 

And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day 
thou shalt be with Me in Paradise. 

This last verse is so important that it is best to give 
literal translation from the original Greek : 

Kttt ewrev avTto b Irjo-ovs : And Jesus said unto him, 

A/xrjv Aeyoo aot, (rr][X€pov per Of a truth I say unto thee, 
e/xov eo-i] ev toj irapo.8eLo-w. this very day thou shalt be 

with me in Paradise. 

The word Christ used on this occasion is one of peculiar 
significance. 

Irjfxepov means this day, to-day, this present day, this 
very day. 

These words were uttered just before the ninth hour 
of the day — i.e. shortly before 3 p.m. The Jewish day 
ended at 6 p.m., therefore Christ definitely promised the 
man who was dying by his side that he should live again 
and be with him in three or four hours. 

This is the plain meaning of Christ's words, and we are 
to presume that Christ not only meant what he said, but 
knew what he meant. 

It Mali scarcely be believed, but the same people who 
try to wrest Christ's words concerning Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob have done their best to take away the blessed 
message to humanity conveyed by Him in this solemn 
hour. 

They inform us that what Christ meant to say was : 



30 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

" Verily I say unto thee this day, that some day thou 
shalt be with me in Paradise." 

Unfortunately for them the whole construction, sense, 
and meaning of the Greek is against such miserable per- 
version of the most solemn words of the Redeemer. The 
only meaning that the words can be made to bear plainly 
upon their face, is that the thief or malefactor should be 
living with Christ in Paradise before the end of the Jewish 
day. 

Christ's bodily death occurred shortly after these words 
were uttered, and all Christian men are bound to believe 
that He and the thief were alive that very day in Paradise, 
or otherwise to doubt their Lord's words altogether, while 
nowhere are we told in Holy Writ that this almost im- 
mediate entry of the " thief " upon the future life was in 
anywise exceptional, or an experience differing in this 
respect from that which will come upon every child of 
man. About thirty-six hours after this event (one whole 
day and part of two other days) Christ was seen alive by 
Mary Magdalene, and continued to be seen, heard, and 
touched for forty days. 

The third direct pronouncement upon this vital question 
occurs in John v. It confirms the position taken up in the 
first — i.e. that men are, have been, and will be, restored 
to life after bodily death — and bears also upon the fourth 
pronouncement. Let us read John v. 21, 25, 26, 28, 29 : 

21. For as the Father raiseth up the dead (eyetpet) * and 
quickeneth them (£wo7roiei).* 

Here once more is the direct statement that God raises 
men to life again, and we know from the case of Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, previously quoted by Christ, that God 
had so raised men ages before. 

This resurrection to life after bodily death is to obtain 
in the future as it has done in the past. Let us read on. 
* Present indicative active — raises — quickens. 



THE WITNESS OF CHRIST 31 

25. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, 
and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of 
God ; and they that hear shall live. 

26. For as the Father hath life in Himself ; so hath He 
given to the Son to have life in Himself (see verse 21); 

27. Marvel not at this : for the hour is coming (and now 
is, see verse 25), in which all that are in the tombs (i.e. the 
" dead ") shall hear His voice, and come forth * ; those who 
have done good to the resurrection of life, and those that have 
done evil unto the resurrection of judgment (Kptcrews). 

Here is the same declaration as before. The dead have 
been raised in the past and will be in the future, thus 
plainly indicating the raising or revivifying of men after 
death as a continuous process which has taken place all 
down the ages and would so continue. 

Now the same persons who are in favour of ages of death 
or oblivion maintain that all this testimony refers to a 
return of life not at once, but in some far-off future — i.e. 
in the General Resurrection — but they are confronted again 
with the same statement that " the Father raiseth up the 
dead " (present indicative), also with the examples of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and Elias, and with the 
explicit statement that this restoration of life to the dead 
shall not only be in the future, but " now is " (verse 25). 

In conclusion we turn to Christ's parable of Dives and 
Lazarus. The impression here conveyed is that the awak- 
ing to consciousness took place very soon after death, 
and this is conclusively shown by the fact that Dives is 
represented as desirous of sending a warning message to 
his brethren who are still in the flesh. Thus the entire 
teaching of Christ makes for the reality and imminence of 

* Soon were these words fulfilled. 
Matt, xxvii. 52, 53 : 

And the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints 
which slept arose. 

And came out of their graves after his resurrection and went 
into the holy city and appeared unto many. 



32 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

life after death, as against the idea of a long period of 
oblivion or sleep, to be followed by a resurrection to life 
on the last day. This idea, so unlike that presented to us 
by the Christ, is only to be found at a later period in 
the history of the Christian Church. 



IV 

THE WITNESS OF THE APOSTLES 

For if we have been planted together with him in the likeness of 
his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. — 
Romans vi. 5. 

Absent from the body . . . present with the Lord. — 2 Cor. v. 8. 

LET us now consider the teaching of the apostles, 
especially that of St Paul, in that he deals very 
fully with the subject. ' 
First in order of importance comes that in the fifteenth 
chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which 
portion of Scripture is used in the Church Burial Service, 
and also in that of many denominations of Christians. 
It has probably brought as much gloom as comfort to 
mourners owing to the almost universal misapprehension 
of verses 51 and 52. Let us read these verses over. 

5 1 . Behold I show you a mystery ; We shall not all sleep, 
but we shall all be changed. 

52. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be 
raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 

Verse 51 is inspiring and comforting, and in accordance 
with Christ's own teaching ; verse 52, as usually accepted 
and interpreted, plunges the mourner in gloom and sorrow. 
It suggests, as usually accepted, ages of oblivion, ages of 
insensibility, ages of separation from those we love. 

But was this St Paul's real meaning and belief concern- 
ing life after death ? It is impossible to think that it 
was. For not only is it contrary to Christ's teaching as 
touching the imminence of life after death, but it is flatly 
contradictory to the magnificent demonstration of human 
survival and life after death given by Christ himself in his 
personal return after death upon the cross. It is also 

c 33 



34 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

contrary to St Paul's own hopes and to his own teaching 
set forth elsewhere. Let us examine this. 

Romans vi. 5 : 

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his 
death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. 

Although in the preceding verse he is alluding to " the 
death unto sin and the rising again unto righteousness " 
in baptism, yet the simile here used undoubtedly contains 
his views on resurrection. Our resurrection will be like 
Christ's. 

Again, the same sentiment is expressed in Phil. iii. 10 
and 11. 

10. That I may know him, and the power of his resurrec- 
tion, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made con- 
formable to his death. 

11. If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of 
the dead. 

To be like Christ is Paul's ambition ; like him in life, 
like him in death, like him in resurrection. 

Now Paul had seen the risen Lord, not once, but several 
times ; on the road to Damascus, in the court of the Temple, 
and doubtless on many other occasions,* and had positive 
evidence of the reality and imminence of life after death, 
such evidence as must have made the idea of ages of sleep 
or oblivion simply unthinkable. What says he in 2 Cor. 
v. 1 and 8 ? 

1 . For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens. 

8. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent 
from the body and to be present with the Lord. 

* Vide Acts xviii. 9-10, also Acts xvi. 7 (Revised Version). 



THE WITNESS OF THE APOSTLES 35 

Here is the same confidence in the imminence of life 
after death so entirely at variance with the possible ages 
of oblivion implied in 1 Cor. xv. 52, according to the common 
interpretation. 

" Absent from the body, present with the Lord " ; how 
can this be unless man rises to life soon after death ? 
Paul's working practical belief is here indicated plainly, 
although it is certain that the phenomena of the materialisa- 
tion of Christ's spiritual body when he returned, and of 
the conditions of the after-death life, were only very im- 
perfectly understood both by St Paul and the other apostles. 
This was pardonable as they had no previous personal ex- 
perience to guide them, while science and the present-day 
knowledge of the physical universe were practically non- 
existent. 

Let us examine 1 Cor. xv., and by comparing it with 
other utterances of St Paul arrive at its true interpretation. 

In the first place we notice that Paul speaks of death not 
as a loss of personality but merely as a sleep, a temporary 
loss of consciousness. 

Secondly we remark that St Paul firmly believed in the 
almost immediate return of Christ and the beginning of 
the Millennial Age. At Christ's second coming both the 
quick and the dead — i.e. those alive and waiting for Christ 
and those " asleep " — were to be " caught up " with him. 
Paul thought that this would happen in his own lifetime. 
We will compare 1 Thess. iv. with 1 Cor. xv. 

1 Thess. iv. i Cor. xv. 

13. But I would not have 51. Behold I show you 

you ignorant, brethren, con- a mystery ; We shall not all 

cerning them which are sleep {i.e. at the Lord's 

asleep, that ye sorrow not, coming, which is close at 

even as others which have hand, some of us will still 

no hope. be alive). 

15. For this we say unto 



36 



MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 



you by the word of the Lord, 
that we which are alive and 
remain unto the coming of 
the Lord shall not prevent 
(anticipate) them which are 
asleep. 



1 6. For the Lord himself 
shall descend from heaven 
with a shout, and with the 
voice of the archangel, and 
with the trump of God : and 
the dead in Christ shall rise 
first. 



52. For the trumpet shall 
sound, and the dead shall be 
raised incorruptible. 



17. Then we which are 
alive and remain shall be 
caught up together with 
them and meet the Lord in 
the air, and so shall we be 
ever with the Lord. 



51 (second half). But we 
shall all be changed (whether 
we be " asleep " or alive), in 
a moment, in the twinkling 
of an eye. 



It is perfectly clear from this comparison that 1 Cor. 
xv. and 1 Thess. iv. refer to the same event. Note the 
identical points. 



1. All shall not be asleep, some shall be alive and waiting, 
some passed over. " We shall not all sleep " ! — 1 Cor. xv. 
" We which are alive and remain." — 1 Thess. iv. 

2. The sound of a trumpet shall accompany the coming 
of the Lord. "The trumpet shall sound." — 1 Cor. "And 
with the trump of God." — 1 Thess. iv. 

3. All, whether asleep or alive in the natural body, shall 
be partakers of the life after death. " Caught up together 
with them, to meet the Lord." — 1 Thess. "But we shall all 
be changed." — 1 Cor. 

4. The change will be rapid. " In a moment, in the twink- 
ling of an eye." — 1 Cor. xv. " Caught up together with them 
to meet the Lord " in the air. — 1 Thess. iv. 



THE WITNESS OF THE APOSTLES 37 

The coincidence of thought and detail is perfect and 
complete, and there is no manner of doubt that St Paul 
is describing the same event in both epistles. 

Now it is certain that St Paul believed that the Parousia, 
or millennial coming of Christ, would be in his own times. 
This is shown by 1 Thess. iv. 15 and 17. 

15. We which are alive and remain shall not anticipate 
them which are asleep. 

17. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up. 

From this it is manifest that r Cor. xv. had no reference 
in St Paul's mind to some period thousands or millions 
of years hence, and his expression " at the last trump " 
referred to Christ's millennial coming, which Paul thought 
was close at hand and expected in his own lifetime. We 
know that it was a universal belief that Christ's millen- 
nial coming would be within the first century. This belief 
shows itself in St John's writings also. 

Rev. 1. 1-3 (St John's prefatory Inscription) : 

Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words 
of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written 
therein : for the time is at hand. 

St John's : For the time is at hand. 

St Paul's : We that are alive and remain shall be caught 
up to meet the Lord in the air. 

show plainly and unmistakably that they were expecting 
It in their own day, and that they looked for speedy life 
after bodily death. St Paul knew the joy of the resurrec- 
tion, for he had seen the risen Lord and conversed with 
him, and his whole theme turns on this subject. He 
regards the loss of all things as of no account whatsoever 
provided that he may have the life after bodily death, as 
Christ visibly had. He sternly rebukes Hymenaeus and 
Philetus (2 Timothy ii. 17 and 18) for their error in saying 
that there is no resurrection for the followers of Christ, 



38 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

and that the resurrection was past— presumably when 
Christ rose — a monstrous doctrine, utterly contrary to all 
Scripture and all human experience, and one which at 
once deprives human life of its meaning, as Paul well knew. 

Now it will be manifest from the above consideration 
of the teachings of Christ and the apostles that no such 
thing as a sleep for ages, or ages of oblivion after death, was 
in their minds. The testimony is all the other way, and 
based on the actual knowledge of those who had either 
attained to life after death or seen its manifestation, for 
(i) Jesus knew the realities of life after death, and previous 
to that event was seen in conversation with the departed 
and with angels ; (2) St Paul's testimony was primarily 
based on actual sight of and conversation with Jesus after 
his bodily death upon the cross. 

It must be therefore noted that the testimony of Jesus 
especially, and that of the apostles also in their degree, 
bears witness to the reality, nearness, and certainty of 
life after death, life at once or very soon, and utterly 
ignores the idea of ages of oblivion, sleep, or waiting. Let 
us briefly examine this miserable, gloomy, and unscrip- 
tural belief, the very negation of the life and joy of the 
resurrection, and see how it arises. Its origin is threefold : 

1. From a failure to grasp the real meaning of Christ's 
words, such as, " This very day shalt thou be with me in 
Paradise." " God is not the God of the dead, but of the 
living." 

2. From a failure to perceive that the Apostle Paul 
looked for the "second coming " of Christ in his own day, 
and, as is manifest from his own words, expected that 
" the last trump " would soon summon those who were 
" asleep," and those who were still alive — himself among 
the number — " to meet the Lord in the air " (1 Thess. iv. 17) . 

3. From an imperfect understanding on the part of the 
apostles of the phenomena attending the materialisation 
of the spiritual body of the Christ, due to lack of previous 



THE WITNESS OF THE APOSTLES 39 

experience, and to the fact that science and the present- 
day knowledge of the physical universe were practically 
non-existent. 

Ages have elapsed, and still the world endures, but the 
words, " at the last trump," have taken a deep hold upon 
men's minds, and are almost invariably associated with 
the end of the world and the consummation of all things, 
and thus the resurrection to life eternal is assigned to some 
distant period almost infinitely remote. 

Ages have elapsed and still the world endures. The 
trumpet has not sounded and the end of the world has not 
come, but hundreds of millions of souls have passed into 
the Beyond. Quite evidently something more positive 
and definite than the idea of an almost infinitely remote 
resurrection is needed. 

This better thing God has given to His children all the 
time. 

Christ's own pronouncement concerning Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, the presence of Moses and Elias with him on the 
Mount of Transfiguration, his words upon the cross, and his 
triumphant demonstration of the reality of his own Spiritual 
Body during the great forty days, show conclusively that men 
experience a restoration to life very soon after the death of 
the mortal body, and always have done. 

It is certain, both from Christ's own teaching in the parable 
of Dives and Lazarus, and from what returning spirits tell 
us with one voice, that just as the resurrection from the 
death of the mortal body is almost immediate — generally 
occurring within a few days — so an immediately effective 
judgment for the deeds done in the body takes place at 
once on the awakening to consciousness in the spirit world ; 
the spirit being assigned " to its own place," (not necessarily 
finally) , according to the nature of the earth life. 

The Church, from the earliest ages, has virtually wit- 
nessed to the truth of the immediate resurrection by the 
doctrine of the descent into Hell (Hades) and the insertion 



40 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of that doctrine in the creeds. But this vital truth, in the 
rebound from the grotesque particularisations of the pains 
of Purgatory to the practical forgetting and denying of 
the immediate life after death on the one hand, and the 
misapprehension of the Scriptures on the other, has become 
obscured and caused the fear of death to regain in later 
times that sting and victory which it was the especial 
mission of Christ to take away. 

It has been our object to show that his testimony is 
entirely on the side of immediate life, as is that of the 
apostles. The Saviour's words sound down the ages. 

Of a truth I say unto thee, this very day shalt thou be with 
me in Paradise. 

Therefore let us comfort one another with these words. 



V 



OF THE CHRIST OF GOD AND OF HIS MISSION TO THE WORLD, 
AND THE PURPOSE OF HIS CRUCIFIXION AND RESURREC- 
TION 

For verily the Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to 
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. — Mark x. 45. 

And he charged them that they should tell no man until the Son 
of man were risen from the dead. — Mark ix. 9. 

And they questioned with one another what the rising from the 
dead should mean. — Mark ix. 10. 

Behold we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of man shall be de- 
livered unto the chief priests and the scribes and they shall con- 
demn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles : and they 
shall kill him, and the third day he shall rise again." — Mark x. 33, 
34 ; ix - 3i- 

A little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and 
ye shall see me. — -John xvi. 16. 

I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice and your joy 
no man taketh from you. — -John xvi. 22. 

He is not here, he is risen : remember how he spake unto you 
when he was yet in Galilee, 

Saying, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of 
sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. — Luke 
xxiv. 6, 7. 

THAT Christ's mission to the world was a divine 
one, foreordained of God, and directed through the 
ministry of his angels is shown especially by the 
direct testimony of the said angelic and spiritual beings 
speaking from the spirit world, and also by the words of 
Christ himself. 

That this mission was carefully prearranged in the spirit 
world before the birth of the agents employed, and that the 
birth of these agents into the world for the express purpose 
was carefully engineered by spiritual beings, is perfectly 
clear to students of Holy Writ. 

Let us first take the testimony given direct from the 
spirit world. The first is that to Mary : 

4i 



42 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

And the angel (Gabriel) said unto her, Fear not. 

Behold thou shalt conceive and bring forth a son (viov) 
and shalt call his name Jesus. 

He shall be great and shall be called a Son of the Highest 
(i'tos vxJ/lcttov). — Luke i. 31, 32. 

The second is that to the shepherds : 

And the angel said unto them, Fear not : for, behold, I bring 
you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. 

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, 
which is Christ the Lord. — Luke ii. 10-11. 

Christ himself gives a careful explanation of this definite 
pre-determination, and of his Sonship, in John x. 35, 36. 

Say ye of him whom the Father hath consecrated (r/yiaa-e) 
and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest because I said 
I am a son of God (ijios tov 6eov eifxi). 

This deliberate prearrangement and provision for the 
birth of an agent to carry out certain definite work in the 
world is also extended to one who is to be the coadjutor 
and helper of the Christ, as is plainly set forth in Luke i. 
11-20 : 

I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God, and am 
sent to speak unto thee and to shew thee these glad tidings. 

Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard ; and thy wife 
Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name 
John. 

He shall be great in the sight of the Lord. 

And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the 
Lord their God. 

And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias. 

This deliberate bringing about from the spirit world by 
spiritual beings of the birth of an agent for definite work 
in this lower material world is also seen clearly and un- 



CHRIST'S MISSION TO THE WORLD 43 

mistakably in the case of the birth of Isaac (Gen. xviii), 
Samson (Judges xiii.), and Samuel (1 Sam. i.). 

The mission of Christ was, however, unique in its interest 
and importance to mankind, in the fullness and power of 
the manifestations from the spirit world which accompanied 
it from first to last, and took place in the further interests 
of human progress. Man was originally placed in this 
mortal life for the express purpose of developing his mind 
and character by a contest with difficulty, temptation * and 
failure. God's purposes to manward are educational and 
progressive, and have been from the first. 

It was part of the divine plan that man should be sub- 
jected to and immersed in the difficulties, temptations and 
failures incident to the earth life, in order that he might 
develop as a free and responsible agent, and prepare him- 
self for the next stage of existence. This immersion of 
man in the difficulties, temptations and failures of the earth 
life, carefully planned and brought about by the Creator, 
has given rise to the allegory of the "Fall " ; but it is 
almost needless to say that the history of the human race, 
so far from showing any fall, exhibits, on the whole, a steady 
rise, progress and development. This, however, will 
always be limited by mortal conditions, and the carnate 
or mortal life will ever be the preparation for the discarnate. 

Christ's mission to mankind was another and supremely 
important step in the Creator's plan for the education and 
development of the race. Its object and purpose was 
twofold. 

1. To bear witness to the discarnate or spiritual life, and 
to nullify or remedy, by the presentation of a body of 
teaching bearing especially upon and influencing conduct, 
the disastrous effects which sin, error, and the neglect of 
opportunity in man's incarnate or mortal life have upon 

* Evil is necessary as an alternative to goodness. Without it, free- 
will's choice could not be exercised, nor character developed. 



44 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

his state and condition when his activities are transferred 
from the said incarnate or mortal life to the discarnate or 
spiritual life (John x. 10). 

2. To give a personal demonstration, after being trans- 
ferred from this mortal life by the death of his carnate body, 
of that higher discarnate or spiritual life and existence, to 
which he had testified, and of which it was his object to 
enable men to reap the full joys and advantages (John 
xvi. 19-22 ; Luke xxiv. 41, 44). 

To accomplish the first half of his fixed purpose he gave 
to the world a sublime teaching bearing upon the conduct 
of man towards God and his fellow-men. 

To accomplish the second half he had to make the tran- 
sition between the incarnate and the discarnate life, and 
then return to those whom he had left behind and who were 
still in the mortal or carnate stage of existence. 

This transition, accomplished by the death of his mortal 
body, he made voluntarily. He could have escaped but 
he made no attempt to do so, such not being his purpose. 
This voluntary death in the interest of man's state or con- 
dition in — and the demonstration of — the future or dis- 
carnate life, seeing that the happiness of that state is so 
seriously prejudiced by sin committed in the mortal life, 
was therefore in the true meaning of the term a sacrifice 
in the campaign against the effects of sin, and in this sense 
a sacrifice for the sinfulness of every man, for the sinfulness 
of the whole world of men. 

For the Son of man came to give his life a ransom (Anyjov, 
a releasing fee) for many. — Mark x. 45. 

This is my blood of the new testament which is shed for 
many unto remission of (a^eo-t?, releasing from, letting go 
from) sins. — Matt. xxvi. 28. 

This sacrifice, however, was incidental to the demonstra- 
tion of human survival of death and the life of the world to 
come, and the promulgation of that teaching and doctrine 



CHRIST'S MISSION TO THE WORLD 45 

the following of which ensures the full advantages of that 
life, putting men "in the way of salvation," and was for the 
purpose of releasing men from the bondage of sin by teach- 
ing them how to avoid, and how to overcome it, not for 
the purpose of bearing away the consequences of each in- 
dividual man's sin and so enabling him to escape the just 
reward of his misdeeds. Christ nowhere teaches us that 
his sacrifice will save men from the just consequences of 
their sins. He teaches us the very reverse. Here are his 
words uttered while on earth : 

Depart from me, for I was an hungered and ye gave me no 
meat ; thirsty and ye gave me no drink ; a stranger and ye 
took me not in ; naked and ye clothed me not, sick and in 
prison and ye visited me not. — Matt. xxv. 41-46. 

Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not 
prophesied in thy name ? and in thy name cast out devils ? 
and in thy name done many wonderful works ? 

Then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart 
from me, ye that work iniquity. — Matt. vii. 22, 23. 

Neither does Christ teach that his sacrifice will save men 
from the consequences of their sins when he has become 
discarnate and is teaching his apostles from the spirit world. 
On the contrary, he says, when appearing to St John in 
Patmos : 

I will give unto every one of you according to your works. — 
Rev. ii. 23 ; Rev. xxii. 12, 16. 

Man has to co-operate to win the reward. 

The doctrine of Vicarious Sacrifice for Sin or the Atone- 
ment by Substitution can never satisfy man's reason or 
sense of justice. Let us see what an Archbishop of the 
Anglican Church has to say about it. Dr Magee, formerly 
Archbishop of York, in his work, The Atonement, page 
103, writes : 

This idea of Christ suffering the same, or an equivalent, 
penalty to that which is due by us and this suffering being a 



46 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

satisfaction to the justice of God is wholly indefensible. Nay 
I go further and I say that this whole idea of transferring 
certain exact and mathematically equal amounts of moral 
suffering from one person to another, as if they were so many 
weights in a scale or so many chemical quantities in a laboratory 
seems to me unthinkable. I cannot even imagine it. Persons 
are not things. Personal feelings, states and conditions cannot 
be made to change places as if they were material substances. 
He who takes my place in suffering does not and cannot take 
my sufferings. These cannot be the same for him as they 
would be for me, simply because he is not I. In his place I 
should not feel precisely as he did. I might feel more. I 
might feel less. I should certainly feel differently. My 
penalty, therefore, cannot be transferred to him. 

As to such transference being an act of justice I wholly 
deny it. The clumsy and grotesque analogy so often em- 
ployed to explain it — that, namely, of a schoolmaster who has 
threatened punishment for some fault, accepting a strong boy 
who has not committed that fault for punishment in the place 
of some sickly boy who has, and then boasting that he has 
kept his word and that his justice is thereby fully satisfied, 
seems to me a downright insult to our understanding. 

The Archbishop's statement is one that must commend 
itself to all thinking men. 

The punishment of the innocent for the guilty, the 
latter escaping all consequences of his wrongdoing, is con- 
trary to the first principles of justice, utterly abhorrent 
to the human mind, and is an outrage upon common 
sense. 

This doctrine of Atonement by Substitution is also con- 
trary to all that is told us from the spirit world. Return- 
ing spirits testify, even as Christ did when he returned (Rev. 
ii. 23), to the absolute justice of God's dealings with the 
spirits of men in the discarnate life of the spirit world. 
No man can rid himself of responsibility for his acts. 
Effects strictly follow causes, and a man has to suffer in 
greater or less degree for deliberately injuring either him- 
self or his fellow-men. An absolutely just judgment 



CHRIST'S MISSION TO THE WORLD 47 

comes immediately upon every child of man, based on 
fundamental principles such as : 

Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you even so 
do ye unto them, for this is the law and the prophets. 

Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. 

With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you 
again. 

but this judgment is tempered with mercy and with a 
perfect ability to fully weigh those circumstances which 
can often justly be urged in extenuation or mitigation, 
taking into account the motives of actions as well as the 
degree of wrong accomplished (page 39). 

Repentance, amendment, and reparation where possible, 
have to come, either in this life or the next. 

It is perfectly clear that although Christ was a willing 
sacrifice in the campaign against the disastrous effects which 
sin, error, and the neglect of opportunity, have on the future 
or discarnate life, and for the demonstration of that life to 
the world, yet this sacrifice of his does not release a man 
from the just consequences of his misdeeds. 

On repentance God forgives the sinner, but the conse- 
quences of his sin remain, just as when a human father 
forgives a son who has brought disaster in health and 
reputation upon himself by folly and wrongdoing ; the 
son is forgiven, but he suffers from the effects of his wrong- 
doing until effort either expiates or amends them. 

Christ saves us from sin (1) by teaching us how to avoid 
it ; (2) by inculcating the duty of repentance, amendment 
and reparation where possible, when it has been committed. 

Not to one Church alone, but seven 

The voice prophetic spake from heaven ; 

And unto each the promise came, 

Diversified but still the same : 

For him that overcometh are 

The new name written on the stone, 

The raiment white, the crown, the throne. 



48 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

The only way to obtain the benefits of Christ's divine 
mission is to listen to his teaching and to try to live the 
Christ life of love, duty, and service, towards God and our 
fellow-men. 

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter 
into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth (c ttolwv, he 
that is doing, he that is striving to do) the will of my Father 
which is in heaven. — Matt. vii. 21. 

We are free agents and there must be a definite effort 
and striving for better things. 

This is the only way by which any At-one-ment with God 
can be ours, either in this world or in the world to come. 

Christ then becomes in very truth our Saviour, bringing 
about our At-one-ment with God our Father in heaven ; 
but this is At-one-ment by Co-operation, not Atonement 
by Substitution. 

Come we now to the second half of Christ's divine mission, 
to his second great purpose, his personal demonstration of 
that discarnate life, or life of the world to come, of which 
he had so often spoken to his apostles. 

That the evidential demonstration of the reality of the 
life of the world to come and of human survival after 
death was one of the chief purposes underlying the tre- 
mendous scene enacted upon Calvary is abundantly evident 
from a careful consideration of Christ's words uttered 
during the closing scenes of his life. 

Some months before the Crucifixion Christ had held 
communion with Moses and Elias on the Mount, and there 
he had talked with them " concerning his decease which he 
should shortly accomplish at Jerusalem." Although the 
details of this conversation are not preserved it is practically 
certain that the resurrection would be mentioned. It is 
plain that the amazing demonstration which Christ was 
about to give to his apostles and to the world loomed largely 
in the Lord's mind during these last few months. So much 



CHRIST'S MISSION TO THE WORLD 49 

so that it was undoubtedly a dominant thought, and one 
that would engage his attention constantly. In fact it 
seems to have been the leading thought, judging Irom his 
words to the apostles. 

And he charged them that they should tell no man until 
the Son of man were risen from the dead. — Mark ix. 9. 

As the time draws near the fixity of his purpose is 
manifest from Luke ix. 51 : 

And it came to pass when the time was come that he should 
be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. 

What is dominating his mind as he journeys, and again 
as the hour draws nigh, is evident : 

For he taught his disciples and said unto them, The Son of 
man is delivered into the hands of men and they shall kill 
him, and after that he is killed he shall rise the third day. — 
Mark ix. 31. 

Behold we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of man shall be 
delivered unto the chief priests and the scribes, and they shall 
condemn him to death and shall deliver him to the Gentiles, 
and they shall kill him and the third day he shall rise again. 
—Mark x. 33, 34. 

A little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little 
while and ye shall see me. — John xvi. 19. 

I will see you again and your heart shall rejoice and your 
joy no man taketh from you. — John xvi. 22. 

But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. 
— Matt, xx vi. 32. 

On many occasions he reverts to the same theme. He 
iterates it and reiterates it until it becomes perfectly 
evident that it is the thing above all others on which his mind 
is set. The death upon the cross being accomplished, this 
tremendous subject of resurrection, of human survival, and 
its demonstration as a fact, engrosses the attention of the 

D 



50 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

arisen Christ and of his apostles and followers, to the prac- 
tical exclusion of everything else during the great forty 
days. The supreme importance of the subject, and of its 
demonstration to the world, is therefore clearly manifest 
and unmistakable. 

The cross thus becomes, in this wondrous story, not 
merely an instrument of capital punishment, or an altar 
of self-sacrifice, as hitherto generally regarded, but also 
part of the setting of a marvellous demonstration of the 
destiny of the human soul in its survival of death, and of 
the life of the world to come. 

The resurrection is the keystone of the Gospel arch. 
How triumphantly Christ fulfilled this second portion of 
his great and divine mission to mankind, and with what 
power and conviction the demonstration was made, will be 
set forth in the next chapter. 



VI 



OF THE REALITY OF CHRIST S RESURRECTION AND THE 
NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE THEREFOR 

That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, 
which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the 
word of life. 

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that 
ye may also have fellowship with us. — i John i. i, 3. 

To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion, by 
many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking 
of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. — -Acts i. 3. 

THE resurrection of Christ rests upon evidence, the 
evidential testimony of the apostles and those who 
had known him. Of this evidence Arnold, Master 
of Rugby, writes : 

The evidence of our Lord's life, death, and resurrection 
may be, and often has been, shown to be satisfactory. It 
is good according to the common rules of distinguishing good 
evidence from bad. Thousands and thousands of persons 
have gone through it piece by piece as carefully as ever judge 
summed up upon a most important case. I have myself 
done it many times over, not to persuade others, but to satisfy 
myself. I have been used for many years to study the history 
of other times and to examine and weigh the evidence of those 
who have written about them, and I know of no fact in the 
history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller 
evidence of every sort to the understanding of a fair inquirer 
than the great sign which God has given us, that Christ died 
and rose again from the dead. 

Let us examine it for ourselves. 

Christ was seen alive, after bodily death upon the cross, 
upon many occasions which are recorded, and on one of 
these occasions by upwards of 500 persons at the same 
time (1 Cor. xv. 6). Let us examine a few of these 
records, and see the nature of the evidence. 

5i 



52 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

The first appearance after his " death " on the cross is 
to Mary Magdalene. Mark xvi. 9 ; John xx. 14. (Visual 
and audible.) 

John xx. 14-17 : 

14. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, 
and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. 

15. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou ? 
whom seekest thou ? She, supposing him to be the gardener, 
saith unto Lim, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me 
where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. 

16. Jesus saith unto her, Mary ! She turned herself, and 
said unto him, Rabboni ; which is to say, Master. 

17. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not, for I am not yet 
ascended to my Father. 

Here Mary Magdalene sees and converses with Christ, 
but is not permitted to touch (lay hold of) him, the reason 
being undoubtedly that in this, the first, materialisation 
of the arisen Christ the power was not sufficient at that 
time to permit of him being touched It is, however, to 
be noted that when he appears to Mary Magdalene and 
" the other Mary " they are allowed to touch him (Matt, 
xxviii. 9), more power evidently being available, drawn 
from the greater number present, as was also the case when 
Thomas and others handled and touched him in the upper 
room (John xx. 27 ; Luke xxiv. 39). (Vide Chapter XX.) 

Appearance to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. 
Luke xxiv. 13-31. (Visual, audible, tactile.) 

And behold two of them went that same day to a village 
called Emmaus. . . . And it came to pass, that while they 
communed together, and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, 
and went with them. . . . And he said unto them, What 
manner of communications are these that ye have one to 
another, as ye walk, and are sad ? And the one of them, whose 
name was Cleopas, answering, said unto him, Art thou only 
a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which 
are come to pass there in these days ? And he said unto them, 



THE REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION 53 

What things ? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus 
of Nazareth. . . . We trusted that it had been he which 
should have redeemed Israel : and beside all this, to-day is 
the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain 
women also of our company made us astonished, which were 
early at the sepulchre ; and when they found not his body, 
they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, 
which said that he was alive. . . . Then he said unto them, 
O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets 
have spoken. . . . And they drew nigh unto the village 
whither they went ; and He made as though he would have 
gone further : but they constrained him, saying, Abide with 
us, for it is towards evening, and the day is far spent. And 
he went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as he 
sat at meat with them,* he took bread, and blessed it, and 
brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and 
they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight. 

Here again all the senses usually employed in identifica- 
tion are satisfied. They see him, they hear him, they 
carry on a long conversation with him, they touch him, 
and yet he vanishes out of their sight. 

Appearance to the eleven disciples. John xx. 24-28. 
(Collective, visual, audible, tactile.) 

24. But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was 
not with them when Jesus came. 

25. The other disciples therefore said, We have seen the 
Lord. But he said unto ther~., Except that I see in Ids hands 
the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I 
will not believe. 

26. And after eight days again Ins disciples were within, 
and Thomas with them : then Jesus came, the doors being 
shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 

27. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and 
behold my hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it 
into my side, and be not faithless, but believing. 

Thomas has the privilege of placing his finger in the 
wounds made by the nails and the spear. All see Christ 

* On this occasion he probably ate and drank. 



54 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

and hear him converse. On another occasion all are 
invited to touch and handle him, and all have the most 
convincing proof of the reality of the Spiritual Body, for 
(Luke xxiv. 39-43) : 

While they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said 
unto them, Have ye here any meat ? 

And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and an honey- 
comb. 

And he took it, and did eat before them. (Vide Chapter 
XX. Cf. also John xxi. 9-14.) 

Next comes the wonderful scene known as the Ascension, 
which seems to have been witnessed by the whole band of 
the disciples (Luke xxiv. 50, 51 ; Acts i. 9). 

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up 
his hands and blessed them. 

And it came to pass that while he blessed them he was 
parted from them. 

And while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud re- 
ceived him out of their sight. 

After the ascent into heaven he is first seen by St Stephen 
(probably clairvoyantly) at the tragic moment immedi- 
ately preceding his execution by stoning. Acts vii. 56 : 
" Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man 
standing on the right hand of God." Next he is seen thrice 
by St Paul. 

(1) Outside the gates of Damascus. 

Acts ix. 4-6 : 

4. And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice sajung unto 
him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? 

5. And he said, Who are thou, Lord ? And the Lord said, 
I am Jesus whom thou persecutest : it is hard for thee to kick 
against the pricks. 

6. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what will 
thou have me to do ? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, 



THE REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION 55 

and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must 
do.* 

(2) In the Temple at Jerusalem. 

Acts xxii. 18 : 

18. And saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee 
quickly out of Jerusalem : for they will not receive thy testi- 
mony concerning me. 

(3) At Corinth. 

Acts xviii. 9-10 : 

Then spake the Lord f unto Paul by night in a vision, Be 
not afraid. For I am with thee. 

And lastly to St John in the Island of Patmos. 
Rev. 1. 13-18 : 

13. And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like 
unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the 
foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. 

14. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as 
snow ; his eyes were as a flame of fire. 

15. And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in 
a furnace ; and his voice as the sound of many waters. 

16. And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of 
his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance 
was as the sun shineth in his strength. 

17. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And 
he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not, 
I am the first and the last. 

18. I am he that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am 
alive for evermore, Amen ; and have the keys of hell and of 
death. 



* This reappearance of Christ out of a cloud of light, the reverse of 
the Ascension (365), is the literal fulfilment of Acts i. 11, and with 
other appearances constitutes the second coming. Any future 
coming would be the third. 

f Cf. Acts ix. 17. The Lord, even Jesus, who appeared unto thee 
in the way. 



56 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

It is to be noted that after the ascension Christ becomes 
more glorious and majestic,* the result of passage to the 
higher spheres. 

Ten of these appearances are seen by several persons at 
one and the same time, and satisfy the evidence of the 
senses of touch, sight, and hearing, and on two of these 
occasions — John xxi. 12, 13, 15 ; Luke xxiv. 42 — he did eat 
food in the sight of them all, giving the most convincing 
manifestations of his reality, and yet his body was not 
the phyiscal and material body, though exactly of the same 
form. It could appear and vanish, pass into a room the 
doors being shut, and ascend into the air before their eyes. 

Now what impresses a student of these matters most 
forcibly in a careful reading of the account of these 
appearances of the risen Lord is— and I say it with all 
reverence, as a Christian man — that there is a remarkable 
resemblance to those apparitions of the departed which 
have been experienced by men all down the ages, and con- 
tinue to be so experienced at the present day, and that 

* It is "with deep interest that we note the almost exact similaritj' 
of this description of the form of the arisen Christ, as he appeared to 
St John some fifty years after his resurrection, to that given by 
Daniel of the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel in Dan. x. 5, 6. 
Cf. also Ezekiel viii. 2 : 

Then I lifted up mine eyes and looked and behold a man clothed 
in linen whose loins were girded with the fine gold of Uphaz. 

His body was like the beryl and his face as the appearance of 
lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, his arms and his feet like 
in colour to polished brass and the voice of his words like the voice 
of a multitude. 

Christ is thus seen to have attained after his earth life to an 
appearance of majesty and glory practically identical with that of 
the great archangels, those spirit princes (Dan. x. 13) who are in 
the counsels of the Most High and who do His will. This appears 
to be the complete fulfilment of the words of the Archangel Gabriel 
to Mary : " He shall be great and shall be called a son of the 
Highest" (vios v\(/icrTov, cf. John x. 36), "and the Lord God shall 
give unto him the throne of his father David. He shall reign over 
the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no 
end." — Luke i. 32, 33. 



THE REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION 57 

the whole of the phenomena recorded of the Christ during 
the great forty days, the handling, eating of food, appear- 
ing and vanishing, conversing, exerting force, rising into 
the air, etc., etc., have been observed on many occasions 
by competent witnesses of the phenomena of materialisa- 
tion during the last fifty years. 

Let us ask ourselves the reason of this. It is not far 
to seek. Christ was perfect man, therefore Christ's bodily 
death was identical with that which will come upon every 
man. His natural body after death had the condition of a 
dead corpse, even as during his earthly life it had the 
condition of a living mortal body. This body was laid in 
the tomb, and his soul passed into the future life in exactly 
the same manner as the souls of other men do. He has thus 
assured us of his participation in our life and death, and of 
our participation in his resurrection. 

Hence the similarity in the manifestation of Christ and 
the manifestations of the departed dead. What difference 
there is in them is entirely one of degree and not of kind. 
Christ, by his appearances after bodily death, " brought 
life and immortality to light," and gave such a continu- 
ous and perfect demonstration of existence as to completely 
convince and satisfy those who saw him of his reality, and 
of the reality of the future state. 

But he was not the first to rise from the dead, as he 
himself testifies in his argument with the Sadducees, and 
as was openly shown by the appearance of Moses and Elias 
on the Mount of Transfiguration, and as he was not the 
first — though the first under the new gospel manifestation — 
so he is not the last. Men have risen from bodily death 
and will so rise to the end of the world, but any manifesta- 
tion of this which God permits, while the same in kind as 
Christ's, necessarily differs in degree and in power just in 
the proportion as ordinary men come short " of the measure 
of the stature of the fullness of Christ." 

While dwelling especially on the perfect humanity of the 



58 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Saviour (as I shall also do in future chapters), and emphasis- 
ing this, it must not be supposed that, when I point out the 
similarity between the after-death manifestations of the 
risen Lord and those of mankind, I do not firmly believe 
and earnestly teach his divine mission. With adoring 
reverence I cry : 

God hath highly exalted him and given unto him the name 
which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every 
knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue 
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the 
Father. — Phil. ii. 9-1 1. 

I wish at this point to emphasise the fact that this book 
deals with the healthy and natural phenomena of the 
spiritual world, the phenomena of revelation, of which the 
Bible is full, and upon which all its teaching rests, culminat- 
ing in the long series of appearances of Christ after bodily 
death, and extended to mankind in proportionate degree. 

It is idle to cry, as some do, that we were never intended 
to have to do with the spirit world while in this mortal 
life. Such a foolish statement ignores the whole course of 
revelation and the facts of the Old and New Testaments. 
Such an attitude adopted towards other branches of human 
knowledge would spell the negation of all human progress. 

The reverent study of such revelations and spiritual 
visitations is, and has always been, encouraged, and the 
whole of our knowledge of the spirit world, the future life, 
and the destiny of the human soul is dependent upon such 
study. 

There sounds down the ages the voice that came from 
the excellent glory, " This is my beloved Son, hear him." 
Christ has ascended into heaven, but in every age " God 
hath not left himself without witness " as to the reality 
and nearness of the life of the world to come. The evidence 
is the same in kind, differing only in its setting, as it was 
on that first Easter morning when Mary Magdalene saw the 
risen Lord and thought he was the gardener. 



VII ~\ 

OF HEAVEN, PARADISE, AND THE LIFE EVERLASTING 

There is no chance or anarchy in the universe. All is system and 
gradation. — Emerson. 

I go to prepare a place for you. — St John xiv. 2. 

WHERE is heaven ? The answer of the average 
Christian man of to-day to the above question 
is supremely unsatisfactory, not merely that it is 
vague, but because, as a rule, it indicates that he has not 
thought upon the subject at all. 

The reply is generally: " Oh, beyond the stars." Such 
an answer conveys no definite idea. Heaven to most 
people is associated with a series of mental pictures based 
upon the symbolical description contained in the Book of 
Revelation ; gates of pearl, streets of gold, foundations 
of precious stones. As to the heavenly life, the ideas are 
equally nebulous. Some seem to think that because St John 
has pictured the worship of the living God in language full 
of beautiful imagery, that the future life will be one long 
round of harping upon harps and continued prayer and 
praise, an endless life of inactivity upon golden plains. I 
am persuaded that it would not be easy to get together a 
series of ideas further from the truth. In the first place, 
and of this we can be certain, heaven is not beyond the stars, 
for the very good reason that as stars and star systems extend 
out to infinity, it is impossible to get " beyond " them. 

The Jews of Christ's day considered that there were 
several heavens, God being placed in the highest, while 
the others were the spheres of angels, of stars, of the air, 
of clouds. This is St Paul's conception of the cosmogony. 
He speaks of being " caught up to the third heaven, and 
of hearing unspeakable words which it is not lawful for 
man to utter." Christ says : " In my Father's house 
are many mansions." The Greek word [xovrj, here used— 

59 



60 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

derived from fxevw, fievetv, to stay— means a stopping- 
place, a resting-place, a place of sojourn ; thus conveying 
the idea of removal and progress from one place to another. 
" Many mansions " certainly indicates a series or succession l 
of abodes. Incidentally one may remark that the belief 
in an especial scene of God's presence and glory is common ' 
to nearly all the religions of the world, whether ancient or 
modern. Aristotle declares that all men, Greeks or Bar- 
barians, have a conception of God, and agree in placing 
Him in the highest heaven. Plato is equally insistent, ; 
and there is no doubt that this conception forms part of the 
original revelation to mankind, but in the early ages of the 
world men were groping in the dark, or rather they had 
such a measure of light given to them as the eyes of their 
understanding would bear. 

God's twin revelations of the truths of the spiritual and 
of the material worlds had only just begun. To-day the 
facts of modern astronomy give us more light than our 
forefathers possessed, and so heaven becomes to us not a 
place of the imagination, with foundations of gold and 
precious stones, but a real place ; thoughtful men to-day, 
in the light of the God-given knowledge of their Father's 
house, realise, as they never did before, that this " house " 
must of necessity have as real an existence as the earth ; 
in a few words, heaven must be a definite part of the 
universe, if in fact it does not comprise the greater part of the 
universe. Christ's own words support this view, for when 
he speaks of heaven, the abode of his father (Matt. vi. 9), 
he uses exactly the same word (ovpavos) as when he de- 
scribes the visible expanse of the sky (Luke xvii. 24). 

Heaven is then no imaginative shadowy dreamland, but 
as real as suns and stars, earths and planets, and matter of 
every degree of solidity and tenuity can make it, as real as 
work and activity of every kind can constitute it. Those 
who imagine that in the future life they are " going to do 
nothing for ever and ever " are in for an awakening in 



HEAVEN, PARADISE, LIFE EVERLASTING 6 1 

more senses than one. Heaven is not to be all worship in 
the sense of being all prayer and praise. 

Prayer and praise there will be, and that of the most 
exalted kind, but in that higher life the old Church's 
motto, Laborare est orare (To work is to pray), will have 
its perfect fulfilment. Not only will it be a state in which 
we are purged from the grossness of the flesh, one in which 
there is no sin, no curse, no tears, no death — a place where 
God shall wipe away all tears from off the faces of those 
who love Him, and where sorrow and sighing shall flee away, 
but it will be activity, the perfect joy that comes from 
perfect success in work that is congenial, of which we have 
a foretaste here below — the pleasure here on earth mingled 
with the pain — as we realise 

That the joy is in the doing, 
And the rapture of pursuing 
Is the prize. 

The Scriptures are full of it. Christ says that we shall be 
" as the angels of God," and if that be the case then there 
is work and activity in storeV or us, — angels ' work. Let us 
look at one phase of that work revealed to us. 

Daniel x. ii, 12 : 

And he said unto me, O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, 
understand the words that I speak unto thee, and stand 
upright, for unto thee am I now sent. And when he had 
spoken this word unto me I stood trembling. 

Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first 
day that thou didst set thine heart to understand and to 
chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I 
am come for thy words. 

Here Gabriel, the archangel, is shown as taking an active 
part in the affairs of earth. While there are those of lesser 
degree (verses 16-17) also engaged in the work. 

Daniel v. 5, 6 : 

In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and 



62 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the 
wall of the king's palace, and the king saw the part of the 
hand that wrote. 

St Luke xxii. 43 : 

And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven 
strengthening him. 

St Matthew xxviii. 2 : 

For the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came 
and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. 

Acts xii. 7-10 : 

And behold the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a 
light shined in the prison, and he smote Peter on the side 
and raised him up saying, Arise up quickly, And his chains 
fell off from his hands. 

And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on 
thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast 
thy garment about thee and follow me. 

And he went out and followed him, and wist not that it 
was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a 
vision. - 

When they were past the first and second ward, they came 
unto the iron gate that leadeth into the city, which" opened to 
them of his own accord, and they went out : passed on through 
one street, and forthwith the angel departed from him. 

Acts xxvii. 23, 24 : 

For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I 
am and whom I serve. 

Saying, Fear not, Paul ; thou must be brought before 
Caesar, and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with 
thee. 

Revelation xxii. 8, 9 : 

And I, John, saw these things and heard them. And when 
I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet 
of the angel which showed me these things. 

Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not, for I am thy 



HEAVEN, PARADISE, LIFE EVERLASTING 63 

fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them 
which keep the sayings of this book. Worship God. 

" Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to 
minister unto them that shall be heirs of salvation ? " 
Christ himself teaches it in John i. 51. Everywhere the 
reality of the life of the world to come is emphasised. 

Bible records and modern spirit communications testify 
that not only is prayer answered through the agency of 
these normally unseen beings (Acts xii. 5, n) but that much 
of the world's inspiration and advancement is due to the 
activities of these agents (Isaiah xxviii. 24-29 ; James i. 
17), many of whom are human angels (Rev. xxii. 9 ; Mark 
xii. 25). Inspiration is not confined to religion. The arisen 
musician still loves music, the artist, form and colour, and 
they inspire those of earth, as agents in the service of God. 
Manifold and varied are the activities of the spirit world, 
even to the bringing about of marriage and the birth of 
children, as shown in Chapter V. and elsewhere. 

Let us now consider the passing of Christ from the 
material life on earth to the highest spiritual life of heaven. 
Nothing is plainer in Holy Scripture than the fact that 
Christ did not go immediately to heaven after his bodily 
death. What are the facts ? 

First, the awful scene of the Crucifixion, then the words 
to the thief : 

This very day shalt thou be with me in paradise. 

Next the taking down from the cross and the entombment 
of the corpse. Then thirty-six hours after, the appearance 
to Mary Magdalene, and the words: "Touch me not, for 
I am not yet ascended unto My Father" (Luke xxii.). 
Next the thirteen other appearances, some of which are 
given in the preceding chapter. Then, after six weeks have 
elapsed, then, and not till then, the ascent into heaven, 
(ets tov ovpavov). Now, as Christ said almost at the moment 



64 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of death, " this very day shalt thou be with me in paradise," 
and as the thief and Christ were together there before the 
end of the Jewish day, evidently paradise is some place or 
condition apart from " the highest " heaven, for Christ, on 
his own showing, had not yet ascended into heaven, and 
did not do so until six weeks after. Where then is paradise ? 
First let us see what the word means. It is a word of 
Persian origin, and means " a park." It occurs three times 
in the Old Testament (Nehemiah ii. 8 ; Ecclesiastes ii. 5, 
and Solomon's Song iv. 13). In the first two it is trans- 
lated " orchard," and in the last " forest." 

In the Persian language it signifies a park, planted and 
carefully ordered, with pleasure gardens, wild animals, 
etc., such as was found around the palace of a king. It 
occurs in the New Testament also three times, and has the 
meaning of an ordered place of happiness. Firstly, it is 
used by Christ in the hour of death as indicating the place 
where he was going immediately after breathing his last 
(Luke xxiii. 43) . Secondly, it is used by St Paul. Now he 
was a believer in the Jewish cosmogony which placed the 
abode of God in the highest heavens (i.e. the most remote 
from the terrestrial surface), and divided the lower heavens 
into regions or stages. First, that of the atmosphere and 
clouds ; second, that of sun, moon, and stars ; third, that 
of angels, and so on. St Paul, speaking of Christ who 
ascended to the right hand of God, describes him as having 
ascended " far above all heavens " (Ephes. iv. 10) — i.e. 
above the lower " heavens." But when Paul speaks of 
"paradise" (the place mentioned by Christ), he places it 
much lower down the scale and much nearer the surface of 
the earth, for he says (2 Cor. xii. 2) that during a state of 
trance or ecstasy he was caught up to the third heaven, 
which in verse 4 he calls paradise. Manifestly, therefore, 
St Paul differentiates between that highest heaven at the 
right hand of God to which Christ ultimately ascended, 
and paradise, to which Christ went immediately after 



HEAVEN, PARADISE, LIFE EVERLASTING 65 

death, and also places the latter near the terrestrial 
surface. 

Thirdly, it occurs in Revelation ii. 7 : 

To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the tree of life 
which is in the midst of the paradise of God. 

The word HapaSewros is the same in all these places, and 
must have the same meaning. 

Now, according to Christ (Luke xxiii. 43; John xx. 17), 
paradise is not heaven, the especial scene of God's presence, 
but it is the place to which he went immediately after 
death, and therefore from whence he came when he made 
his repeated appearances during the great forty days. 
According to Paul, it is the " third heaven." 

Therefore, if any inference can be drawn from these 
Scriptures, paradise, the place to which the soul first goes 
after death, lies, in part at any rate, upon the earth, and 
the paradise life seems to include the enjoyment of the 
scenes of earth, untrammelled by the material body, and 
heightened by the possession of powers and faculties of 
which we can have but faint conception. 

Notice how Christ comes and goes immediately from the 
visible to the invisible. He vanishes out of sight of the 
two in the little caravanserai at Emmaus, and when they 
have hurried breathless with the news to Jerusalem, even 
while they are yet speaking, he is with them again. I say 
it with all reverence, probably he walked by their side the 
whole way back, and listened with love and affection to their 
words of wonder and delight. 

But some people may say : " Earth is no place for the 
risen body." To which I can only reply in the words of 
the Christ (Matt. x. 24, 25) : 

The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above 
his lord. 

It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and 
the servant as his lord. 

K 



66 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

If paradise and a forty days' sojourn amidst the scenes 
of earth are good enough for our Master, they are good 
enough for us, and if the earth is a place fit for the arch- 
angels Gabriel and Michael — Gabriel actually passing 
several weeks in the Court of the King of Persia (Dan. x. 
13) — and for many other servants of God who were seen 
in the likeness of the sons of men (Dan. x. 16, 18 ; Rev. 
xxii. 9) we also may well be content with a sojourn for a 
time under the same conditions. We must remember that 
" heaven " and " paradise " may not only be used to desig- 
nate places, but the states or conditions of life therein. 
The scenes of paradise are, as far as can be inferred, those 
of this planet and its immediate surroundings, etherealised 
and made glorious by the new life and the extended powers 
of a higher stage of existence. To man these scenes are 
earth, beautiful indeed, but marred by the limitations, the 
weaknesses, the sins, of his material frame. To the true 
" Superman," man in the " spiritual body," the same fair 
scenes of earth may well be a thousandfold more fair ; 
transformed by the new conditions of life into which he has 
entered. So heaven may well be not a strictly localised 
place, " a city with twelve gates," but the wider regions of 
the universe, made accessible under ever-advancing spiritual 
powers. 

The experiences of mankind all down the ages, some of 
which it is my privilege to set forth in these pages, confirm 
this view in a striking manner. It would seem that for 
some time after death the spirit remains near the old 
familiar scenes, then, after a period more or less extended, 
the delights and privileges of the spirit life are more fully 
entered into, paradise thus gradually giving place to 
heaven, the spirit's final goal. 

I have previously remarked that the idea of a series of 
spheres or heavens, the highest being the especial scene of 
God's more immediate presence, is common to nearly all the 
religions of the world and has its origin, almost certainly, 



HEAVEN, PARADISE, LIFE EVERLASTING 67 

in the original revelation to mankind. > It is certainly the 
idea that fills the mind of St Paul, and it is perfectly illus- 
trated by the after-death life of Christ as demonstrated to 
the apostles, and in his teaching. Such information as can 
be obtained from the spirit messages of our own times 
confirms this idea in a remarkable way. There is a steady 
and practically unanimous testimony to the existence of a 
state of affairs to all intents and purposes identical with St 
Paul's " heavens " and Christ's " mansions." Returning 
spirits, communicating in various ways, broadly outline the 
existence of several spheres or " heavens " which they say 
surround the earth, forming a series of concentric envelopes, 
just as the atmosphere surrounds the earth. Like the air 
they are invisible to normal human vision, and being 
composed of matter in an extremely rarefied form, are 
imperceptible to our grosser material sense. 

The existence of rings of extremely tenuous matter round 
the planet Saturn, the recent discoveries in connection with 
Radium, of forms of matter normally invisible and impalp- 
able, the fact that the envelope of air surrounding our planet 
in which men, birds, and insects fly is also invisible, and the 
still more trenchant fact that the spiritual beings which at 
one moment can be seen, felt, and can exert great force, are 
the next invisible and impalpable to normal sight and 
touch, make it possible to conceive how such a condition 
of affairs can exist. The existence of such regions, or 
mansions, composed of rarefied matter, invisible and 
impalpable to normal sense, is no more wonderful and 
astonishing than the existence of a spiritual being normally 
invisible and impalpable, but capable of entering into 
relations with grosser matter. The existence of a normally 
invisible spirit land or abode is no more wonderful or 
incredible than the existence of its normally invisible 
inhabitants. 

Modern spirit communications inform us that these 
several spheres are the scenes of varied life and activities, 



68 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

and that similar spheres surround all inhabited planets, of 
which there must be many in the universe. 

Concerning these spheres of habitation there is a general 
agreement of statement on the following points : — 

i. That the earth-surface and the scenes of earth, together 
with the lower atmosphere, are comprised in the first sphere 
or stage of the spirit world. 

2. That several other spheres exist beyond this first sphere. 

3. That the occupants of the higher spheres can visit 
other parts of the stellar and planetary systems and can 
descend to the lower spheres whenever they please, but 
that the inhabitants of a lower sphere cannot ascend to 
a higher one at will. 

4. That there are differing regions or realms in the 
spheres just as there are different rooms in the story of a 
house. 

These statements are reasonable and in accordance with 
those of Christ and St Paul previously quoted, while they 
are in part confirmed by careful observations of the material- 
isation phenomena of modern times, as well as by the 
appearances of Christ after his resurrection. 

It is quite certain from these observations and experi- 
ences that spiritual beings can enter into relations with 
matter of varying degrees of solidity and tenuity, life and 
experience being real and objective to them, both in the 
more tenuous matter of the spirit world and on the more 
solid surface of the earth. The life of the arisen is more 
real to the extended powers then possessed than is this 
mortal life on which we set such store. 

It is worthy of note, as previously pointed out, that after 
Christ's ascension into heaven his outward appearance 
changes and becomes at once more glorious and of terrible 
majesty, as evidenced by the appearance to Paul on the 
way to Damascus, and by that to St John in the Isle of 
Patmos, but during the forty days of the paradise life he 
retains the well-known and beloved form and features and 



HEAVEN, PARADISE, LIFE EVERLASTING 69 

assumes the dress in which he went in and out amongst 
men. 

It is enough that the disciple be as his master, and the 
servant as his lord. 

As the Lord had gone, by the same road shall we go, 
and this is the life everlasting, " that life and immortality " 
which it was the especial mission of Christ to bring to light. 

Let us now briefly examine the terms, Eternal or Ever- 
lasting life, and immortality, so that we may be assured of 
what they mean. We are chiefly concerned with Eternal life 
and not with immortality, for immortality is the property 
of God alone as being without beginning and without end. 
This St Paul sees when he says (1 Timothy vi. 15, 16) : 

I give thee charge in the sight of God, who only hath immor- 
tality, dwelling in the light which no 'man can approach unto. 

Man is a created being, and therefore his future life 
cannot be described as " immortality," for this only is 
applicable to one without beginning. Sufficient for him if 
he persists, survives the change called death, and has 
Eternal life. Christ always describes this as "the life of 
the ages." 

And in the world to come, Eternal life ((co^v anoviov, the 
life of the ages). — Luke xviii. 30. 

This " life of the ages," therefore, is practically immor- 
tality in that it has no end. 

Survival of bodily death is not dependent on any creed or 
religions belief whatsoever. It is'a property inherent in 
human nature, as the result of God's creative act. 

This is proved by the evidences of the return of the spirits 
of the departed of all nationalities, of varying religious 
beliefs, and of no religious belief at all, obtained through 
various forms of spirit manifestation. 



70 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Every man has in him a part of the Divine Spirit, the 
Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of Life, who breathed 
into man the breath of life, and so created him a living soul 
(Gen. ii. 7). For that reason man's spirit does not die 
when " the earthly tabernacle of this flesh is dissolved." 
It is as inherent in human nature to enter the new life of 
the world to come on the death of the mortal body as it is 
to be born into this life. Careful observation in psychical 
research leads us to conclude also that this property of 
survival is not absolutely confined to the human race, 
but may extend to other orders of living creatures. This 
is intelligible when we consider that all life comes from 
the Living God, the Author and Giver of Life. 

While it is certain that human survival, per se, is entirely 
independent of creed or moral or religious belief, it is equally 
certain that the happiness in that future state of existence, 
of all human beings who have attained an age or condition 
wherein they are responsible for their own actions, is largely 
dependent on conduct which is according to certain fun- 
damental religious and moral principles. This is where 
religion and morality come into the case. In few words, 
survival, or the immediate life after death, is not dependent 
on either religion or morality, but happiness and well-being 
in that life are. Hence the importance of conduct. 

Let's then the important now employ, 

And live as those who never die. 

This brings us to the fact that both good and bad 
men rise again, as Christ plainly indicates to us in his 
description of the Judgment (Matt. xxv. 31, 46), and also 
in his parable of Dives and Lazarus. Judgment follows 
resurrection immediately (Luke xvi. 23, 28). 

For the righteous this resurrection life is unending, and 
is one of happiness and advancement. For the ungodly, 
those who have here deliberately lived wickedly and refused 
to acknowledge and worship the living God, it is a period 
of stern discipline (John v. 29), but with opportunities for 



HEAVEN, PARADISE, LIFE EVERLASTING 71 

repentance, reparation, and amendment. Should this 
discipline be unheeded (a state of affairs almost inconceiv- 
able), then, finally, loss of human personality, by destruc- 
tion or absorption, may result (the " second death "—Rev. 
ii. 6 ; xxi. 8), for He who creates can also destroy. To 
those who have carelessly neglected the earth life's oppor- 
tunity it opens as a period of great loss and bitter regret, 
only to be made good slowly and painfully (Luke xvi. 27). 
Deliberate cruelty and injustice, the returning of evil for 
good, malice, and contemptuous disbelief in God and the 
spirit world, have the most to fear. For those who have 
had little chance in the mortal life, it is a time of further 
opportunity (Luke xii. 48). The idea of myriads of souls, 
who through accident of birth or bias of environment— the 
Congo savage or the young criminal born and bred in the 
crime and grime of a London slum— the idea that these 
have no further opportunity is unthinkable.* 

I think heaven will not shut for evermore 

Without a watcher standing at the door, 

Lest some belated wanderer should come 

Heartbroken, asking just to die at home ; 

So that the Father shall at last forgive, 

And looking on His face, that soul shall live. 

I think there will be watchmen through the night, 

Lest any, afar off, turn them to the light. 

That He who loved us into life must be 

A Father infinitely fatherly. 

And, groping for Him, these shall find their way 

From outer dark, through twilight, into day. t 

Yea, verily ! He who through the Christ gave us the 
divine'parable of the Prodigal, assuredly shall never doom 

* The Pastor of Hermes, a work written early in the second century 
(ad 130-150), indicates a belief that repentance, amendment, and 
restoration may come in the spirit world, while the writings of 
Papias (circa a.d. 150) and the Epistle of Ignatius refer to degrees 
both in the habitations and rewards of spiritual beings. 

f Gerald Massey. 



72 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

a soul, either here or hereafter, that shall turn to Him and 
cry : " Father, I have sinned against heaven and before 
Thee " ; such an one shall surely hear the gracious words : 
" This my son was dead and is alive again, was lost and is 
found " (Luke xv. 24). 



VIII 

OF THE TWO BODIES AND THE NATURE OF MAN 

There is a natural body * and there is a spiritual body. — i Cor. 
xv. 44. 

THE belief in the duality of man's nature is one reach- 
ing back to the very dawn of civilisation. All 
peoples that have attained to any degree of pro- 
gress have been convinced that man possessed not merely 
his mortal body, but something else which is a distinct 
entity, having the power of existing independently and 
apart from that body. This belief is well-nigh universal, 
and has ever been found not only among nations who have 
led the van of civilisation, but amongst those comparatively 
rude and savage. 

It is the belief of Plato, set forth fully in his Phaedo ; Plato, 
the cultured Greek, the subtle thinker ; of Cicero,| the illus- 
trious Roman orator and man of letters — and again, it 
is the belief of the North American Indian, of no culture 
at all. It would be tedious to trace it through the various 
religious and philosophical systems of the last three thousand 
years, and it is not our intention to do so, but to come 
straight to the scriptural doctrine as set forth by Christ 
and his apostles. We first take Christ's testimony as the 
most authoritative. 

* Sw/xa (pvcriKov — the physical or grosser material body. 

f How splendid is Cicero's glowing realisation of the truth of 
human survival will be apparent from his words in his treatise, 
De Senectute : 

" For my own part I feel myself transported with the most ardent 
impatience to join the society of my departed friends. Nor is my 
earnest desire confined to those with whom I was formerly con- 
nected. I ardently wish to visit also those worthies of whose 
honourable conduct I have heard and read so much, or whose virtues 
I have commemorated in my writings. To this glorious assembly 
I am speedily advancing, and I would not be turned back in my 
journey even on the assured condition that my youth, like that of 
Pelias, might be again restored. O glorious day when I shall 

73 



74 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

St Matthew x. 28 : 

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able 
to kill the soul. 1 

Here Christ definitely distinguishes between the body 
and the soul of a man as between separate entities. Next 
in importance comes that of St Paul. As the result of his » 
own experiences in conjunction with those of the apostles, 
together embracing personal intercourse with Christ 
before and after his Crucifixion, he states definitely that 
not only has man a natural (mortal) body, but that he 
also has a spiritual body. Here is set forth one of the 
deepest truths that can engage the attention of mankind. 

The most profound thinkers of all ages have been 
convinced of the complex nature of man. Plato, in his 
Phaedo, describes man as consisting of (mortal) body, 
soul, and spirit, and this is also practically the scriptural 
idea of man's nature. Plato's body, soul, and spirit 
correspond to the Greek o-w/m, faxy, and 7rvev[xa, and to the 
Latin Corpus, mens and anima. But Plato does not dis- 
tinguish between ^XV an d Trvevpa, nor does Christ, for the 
very good reason that life and soul are in man interde- 
pendent, and essential for a continuance of either material 
or spiritual existence. It will be seen that Christ uses the 
same word ^v^n to indicate animal life, and also the soul 
which survives bodily death. For note : 

withdraw from this low and sordid scene to associate with the divine 
assembly of departed spirits, and not only with those whom I have ? 
just mentioned, but also with my dear Cato, that best of sons. 
It was my sad fate to lay his body on the funeral pyre, when by 
the course of nature I had reason to hope he would have performed 
that last office to mine. His soul, however, did not desert me, but 
still looked back on .me in its flight to those happy mansions to ji 
which he was assured I should one day follow him. If I seemed to 
bear his death with fortitude it was because I supported myself ' 
with the reflection that we should not long be separated." 

There is nothing finer, and little to equal it, in the whole range of c 
Christian literature. 



THE TWO BODIES 75 

Mark hi. 4 ; Luke vi. 9 : 

Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good or to do evil, 
to save life tyvyr] ) or to kill ? 

Mark viii. 28 : 

But fear not them which kill the body, but are not able 
to kill the^soul [\pv^]). 

Obviously, therefore, when Christ describes the soul as 
surviving bodily death he describes life as surviving also, 
for he uses the same word for both, and he thus stamps 
with his authority the fact that life and the soul are 
bound up together and can exist apart from the grosser 
material or mortal body. 

This living entity which can separate from the mortal 
body and still live is called by St Paul the Spiritual Body 
(1 Cor. xv. 44). Christ himself gave the most perfect 
manifestation of the spiritual body that the world has 
ever seen. As observed by the apostles during the great 
forty days, this spiritual body of Christ was a perfect replica 
of his material body ; it had exactly the same appearance, 
and his personality was identically the same as they had 
known before the Crucifixion, and yet his new body was 
not of the same nature as the old one, for now it could 
come into a room the doors being shut, it could appear out 
of the air, and vanish into the air. 

Christ was perfect man. He was born of a woman, 
passed through infancy and childhood, and his mortal body 
was similar to ours. He was weary, felt the pangs of 
hunger and thirst ; he wept, he prayed to God as other men 
do (Matt. xxvi. 39), was exceedingly sorrowful; groaned, 
his blood poured out from the wounds of nails and spear ; 
he cried to God in the hour of death (Matt, xxvii. 46), and 
finally died upon the cross as the others died, and in all 
things showed forth his perfect humanity. Therefore, as 
he died and rose again to life, so shall we ; as he during 



76 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

earthly life had the spiritual body dwelling within the 
mortal, so have we ; as his mortal body died and his 
spiritual body survived, so will ours. 

It is absolutely necessary to emphasise the perfect 
humanity of the Christ. It is the resurrection of " the 
man, Christ Jesus " that is of such vast interest and im- 
portance to mankind. To endeavour to make out that 
Christ's mortal body was in some way different to ours, 
his death different to ours, his resurrection different to ours, 
is to deal a deadly blow at the most precious manifestation 
of truth given to us by Christ, and at once to undermine 
its very chiefe st interest and consolation. It is the glory 
and power of Christianity that Christ was perfect man, and 
that as he rose from the death of his mortal body, so shall 
we rise. Once concede that Christ's mortal body was 
different J& ours, his death different to ours, his resurrec- 
tion different to ours — that they were special, unique, 
privileged — then immediately we cease to be like him, and 
his manifestation of resurrection at once becomes no proof 
whatsoever that we shall rise again. This is so obvious as 
to be unanswerable. 

It is almost unnecessary to say that it is the spiritual 
body which lives after death. The gross material body of 
our flesh rapidly decays and is resolved into its chemical 
constituents, " dust to dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes," 
like the body of any other animal, or if it be cremated, it 
is burned to ashes and reduced to its elemental gases. 
The gross material body is dispersed, having fulfilled its 
use as a tenement for the spiritual body, and its rising again, 
when rotted or burned away, is not only a physical im- 
possibility, but contrary to the natural law of the spiritual 
world. This is entirely in accordance with St Paul's teach- 
ing. " This mortal shall put on immortality." The natural 
body, worn out and done with, gives place to the spiritual ^ 
body, " for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom 
of God" (i Cor. xv. ; 2 Cor. v.). 



THE TWO BODIES yy 

The Lord's risen body, therefore, was the spiritual body ; 
in it, when materialised, he was tangible and visible, he 
spake, ate, and appeared in all things similar to his mortal 
body {vide Chapter XX.). 

This spiritual body, or spirit body, is a real and effectual 
body, composed of matter in an extremely rarefied form, yet 
having substance, and so capable of entering into relations 
with grosser matter, and carrying human personality. 

As Christ was perfect man, and of a reasonable soul and 
human flesh subsisting, we may expect to find the pheno- 
mena of his dual nature similar to those of other human 
beings. His mortal body is born of a woman, goes through 
the stages of infancy and childhood, hungers, thirsts, is 
weary, suffers, weeps, dies, just as that of other men, there- 
fore when his spiritual body is seen after death we may 
expect to find this taking place with ordinary human beings, 
and we are not disappointed ; we find to our great comfort, 
phenomena identical in kind with those manifested by the 
arisen Christ. " That there is a natural body and there is 
a spiritual body " is true of all men, and true to-day as it 
was two thousand years ago. This great truth so perfectly 
exemplified in the person of Christ during his earthly life, 
and in that Resurrection which is the keystone of the 
Gospel arch, was clearly understood in the apostolic times 
and by the early Christians. 

With very many persons it has in these days become 
relegated to the background and obscured, but the evidence 
which can be adduced will show that the experience of 
mankind to-day is the same as it was in the days of him 
who first brought life and immortality to light, and that 
evidence we shall now unfold. 



IX 



OF THE EXISTENCE AND OCCASIONAL MANIFESTATION OF 
man's SPIRITUAL BODY DURING HIS "natural"* OR 
MORTAL LIFE 

The spirit of a man which is in him. — i Cor. ii. n. 

THE " Spiritual Body " is a replica of the mortal 
or physical body, and dwells within it during the 
existence of that body in the earth life. It is the 
ego, the personality, the living soul, the real man, and 
survives the death of the mortal body. It would seem 
from the description of those who have studied the pheno- 
mena of hypnotism — which is a well-established scientific 
fact — that there are times during deepest hypnotic trance 
when the observer obtains a glimpse of the Spiritual Body 
under conditions other and apart from the phenomena 
about to be described. Professor Gregory t says, in his 
work on animal magnetism : 

When the sleeper has become fully asleep, so as to answer 
questions readily without awakening, there is almost always 
observed a remarkable change in the countenance, the manner, 
and the voice. On falling asleep at first he looks perhaps 
drowsy and heavy like a person dozing when overcome by 
fatigue, but when spoken to he usually brightens up, and 
although the eyes be closed, yet the expression becomes highly 
intelligent, quite as much so as if he saw. His whole manner 
seems to undergo a refinement which in the higher stages 
reaches a most striking point, insomuch that we see as it were 
before us a person of a much more elevated character than 
the same sleeper seems to be when awake. 

It would seem as if the lower or animal propensities were 
laid to rest while the intelligence and the higher sentiments 



* I.e. life in the grosser Material Body. 

f Dr William Gregory, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 
Professor of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh. 

7 S 



EXCURSIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 79 

shine forth with a lustre which is undimmed by anything that 
is mean or common. This is particularly seen in women of 
natural refinement and high sentiments, but it is also seen in 
men of the same stamp, and more or less in all. 

In the higher stages of mesmeric sleep the countenance often 
acquires the most lovely expression, surpassing all that the 
great artists have given to the Virgin Mary or to angels, and 
which may fitly be called heavenly, for it involuntarily suggests 
to our minds the moral and intellectual beauty which alone 
seems consistent with our views of heaven. 

As to the voice, I have never seen one person in the true 
mesmeric sleep who did not speak in a tone quite distinct 
from the ordinary voice of the sleeper. It is invariably more 
soft and gentle. In the higher stages it has a character quite 
new, and in perfect accordance with the pure and lovely smile 
of the countenance which beams on the observer in spite of the 
closed eyes like a ray of heaven's own light and beauty. 1 
speak here of what I have often seen. The sleeper in the 
mesmeric state has a consciousness quite separate and distinct 
from his ordinary consciousness, he is, in fact, if not quite a 
different individual, yet the same individual in a different 
and distinct phase of his being, and that phase a higher one. 

This is in entire accordance with the indwelling of the 
Spiritual Body within the Material. The Material or 
Natural Body is asleep, and the Spiritual shines forth in 
all its majesty and loveliness. 

From many carefully recorded observations it is shown 
that the Spiritual Body can and does at times leave its 
Material Tenement and manifest itself in a variety of 
ways. This temporary disassociation or excursion gener- 
ally takes place under one of the following conditions :— 

1. The approach of death. 

2. Imminent peril or severe illness. 

3. Strong mental emotion or longing. 

4. Deep trance-like sleep. 

5. Fixed purpose or design. 

I say generally, for there are cases where the excursion 
and appearance are not governed by the above conditions. 



So MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

« Let us now begin to examine the evidence, well attested 
and investigated, for the separation and excursion on the 
approach of death, but before death has taken place. 

One of the best authenticated instances, and there are 
many, is the well-known and oft-quoted case of Mrs Birbeck 
set forth fully in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical 
Research (vol. i., page 122). 

In 1789 Mrs Birbeck, wife of William Birbeck, banker, of 
Settle, and a member of the Society of Friends, was taken 
ill and died at Cockermouth while returning from a journey 
to Scotland, which she had undertaken alone, her husband 
and three children, aged seven, five, and four years respec- 
tively, remaining at Settle. The friends at whose house the 
death occurred made notes of every circumstance attending 
Mrs Birbeck 's last hours, so that the accuracy of the several 
statements are beyond the doubtfulness of man's memory, or 
of any unconscious attempt to bring them into agreement 
with each other. One morning, between seven and eight 
o'clock, the relation to whom the care of the children had been 
entrusted, and who kept a minute journal of all that concerned 
them, went into their bedrooms as usual and found them all 
sitting up in bed in great excitement and delight. " Mamma 
has been here," they cried, and the little one said, she called 
" Come, Esther." Nothing could make them doubt the fact, 
and it was carefully noted down to entertain the mother when 
she came home. That same morning, as their mother lay on 
her dying bed at Cockermouth, she said, " I should be ready 
to go if I could but see my children." She then closed her 
eyes, to reopen them, as they thought, no more. But after 
ten minutes of perfect stillness she looked up brightly and said, 
" I have been with my children," and then at once peacefully 
passed away. When the notes taken at the two places were 
compared, the day, hour, and minutes were the same. 

An almost exactly similar instance is given in Lee's 
Glimpses of the Supernatural, pages 64-66, but in this 
instance the distance covered is greater. 

A lady and her husband who held a position of some dis- 
tinction in India were returning home (a.d. 1854) after an 



EXCURSIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 81 

absence of fourteen years to join a family of young children, 
when she was seized in Egypt with an illness of the most 
dangerous character, and though carefully attended by an 
English physician and nursed with the greatest care grew so 
weak that little or no hope of her recovery existed. With that 
true kindness which is sometimes withheld by those about a 
dying bed she was properly informed of her dangerous state, 
and bidden prepare for the worst. Of a devout, pious, and 
reverential mind, she is reported to have made a careful pre- 
paration for her latter end, though no clergyman was at hand 
to administer the last sacrament or to afford spiritual consola- 
tions. The only point which seemed to disturb her mind after 
the delirium of fever, was a deep-seated desire to see her absent 
children once more, which she frequently expressed to those 
attending upon her. Day by day for more than a week she 
gave utterance to her longings and prayers, remarking that 
she would die happy if only this one wish could be gratified. 
On the morning of the day of her departure she fell into a long 
and heavy sleep, from which her attendants found it difficult 
to arouse her. During the whole period of it she lay perfectly 
tranquil. Soon after noon, however, she suddenly awoke, 
exclaiming, " I have seen them all. I have seen them. God 
be praised through Jesus Christ," and then slept again. 
Towards the evening, in perfect peace and with many devout 
exclamations, she calmly yielded up her spirit to God who 
gave it. Her body was brought to England and buried in the 
family burial place. The most remarkable part of this incident 
remains to be told. The children of the dying lady were 
being educated in Torquay under the supervision of a friend 
of the family. At the very time that their mother was asleep 
they were confined to the house by a severe storm of thunder 
and lightning. Two apartments on one floor, perfectly 
distinct, were then occupied by them as play and recreation 
rooms. All were thus gathered together. Not one of the 
children was absent. They were amusing themselves with 
games, books, and toys, in company of the nursemaid, who 
had never seen their parents. All of a sudden their mother, as 
she usually appeared, entered the larger room of the two ; 
pausing, she looked for some minutes at each, smiled and 
passed into the next room, and then vanished away. Three 
of the elder children recognised her at once, but were greatly 
disturbed and impressed at her appearance, silence, and 



82 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

manner. The younger and the nursemaid each and all saw a 
lady in white come into the smaller room and then slowly 
glide by and fade away. 

The date of this occurrence, Sept. 10, 1854, was carefully 
noted, and it was afterwards found that the two events above 
recorded happened almost contemporaneously. A record of 
the event was committed to paper and transcribed on the fly- 
leaf of the family Bible, from which the above account was 
taken and given to the author of this book in the autumn of 
the year 1871 by a relation of the lady in question, who is well 
acquainted with the fact of her appearance at Torquay, and 
has vouched for the truth of it in the most distinct and formal 
manner. The husband, who was reported to have been of a 
somewhat sceptical habit of mind, was deeply impressed by 
the occurrence, and it is known to have had a very deep and 
lasting religious effect on more than one person who was 
permitted directly to witness it. 



In both these cases there is the intense longing on the 
part of the mother to see her dear ones, then the trance- 
like sleep during which the excursion of the Spiritual Body 
is made, the latter being in each instance seen by several 
persons, and the time coinciding exactly, the death of the 
Mortal Body not taking place until some time afterward. 
But it is not at the approach of death only that these 
phenomena are observed. Some crisis of imminent peril 
or severe illness can also effect the separation and induce 
the excursion, and there are instances on record where this 
excursion has actually been the means of saving life by 
calling in aid. Very many instances of this separation 
under crisis are given in the Proceedings of the S.P.R. and 
elsewhere. Want of space compels me to confine the 
narrative to the recording of a few of those in which there 
are several witnesses of the apparition, or which happen to 
be in other ways particularly well attested. 

We now come to an instance in which the exciting cause 
is an intense desire for counsel and help. 

This case was thoroughly investigated by Messrs Gurney 



EXCURSIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 83 

and Myers, and is taken from Phantasms of the Living 
(vol. ii., page 239). There are two percipients. 

The first account was sent by Mrs Elgee, 18 Woburn 
Road, Bedford. She describes how she and a lady friend 
were sleeping in a large room in an hotel at Cairo and how 
they carefully locked and barricaded the doors of their 
room, which was three stories above the ground, fearing 
robbers. She goes on to say : 

I suddenly woke up from a sound sleep with the impression 
that someone had called me, and sitting up in bed, to my un- 
bounded astonishment, by the clear light of early dawn coming 
in through the large window before mentioned, I beheld the 
figure of an old and valued friend whom I knew to be in England. 
He appeared as if most eager to speak to me, and I addressed 
him with, " Good gracious, how did you come here ? " 

So clear was the figure I noted every detail of his dress, 
even to three onyx shirt studs he wore. He seemed to come 
a step nearer to me, when he suddenly pointed across the 
room, and on looking round I saw Miss D. sitting up in bed 
gazing at the figure with every expression of terror. On 
looking back my friend seemed to shake his head and retreated 
step by step slowly until he seemed to sink through that portion 
of the door where the settee stood. 

Remembering that Miss D. had seemed to see the figure I 
determined to let the test of my vision be what she said to 
me on the subject. 

Presently Miss D. looked about the room, and noticing the 
chair and bag (in place against the door) remarked that they 
had not been much use. I said, " What do you mean? " and 
then she said, "Why, that man who has been in the room 
must have got in somehow." 

She then proceeded to describe exactly what I myself had 
seen. I asked did she know who it was. 

" No," said she, " I have never seen him before, or anyone 
like him." I said, " Have you ever seen a photograph of him ? " 
She said, " No." This lady was not told what I saw, yet she 
described exactly what we had both seen. 

I was under the impression that my friend was dead. Such 
was not the case, for I met him four years later. Without 



84 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

telling him of my experience I asked him if he could remember 
what he was doing on a certain night in November, 1864. 
After a little reflection he said, " Why that was the time I was 
so harassed trying to decide for or against the appointment 
offered to me. I sat over the fire quite late, trying to think 
what you would have advised me to do." Having told him 
the circumstances, I asked him if he had been aware of any 
unusual sensation. He said, none, only that he wanted to 
see me very much. A comparison of times, allowing for the 
difference between England and Cairo, showed that our ex- 
periences were simultaneous. E. H. Elgee. 

Miss D., who is now Mrs Ramsey, of Cleveland Bassett, 
Southampton, confirms this as follows : — 

I was wide awake. I was looking at the shadows of the 
pepul tree shaking on the wall when gradually they seemed to 
merge into a human form, which form took the shape not of an 
Arab, but of an English gentleman. Then the form glided into 
the room, advancing towards my chaperon and stretching out 
his arms as if in blessing, turned round and looked at me, and 
then vanished again into the shadows as it came. I do not re- 
member feeling terrified, only awed. The face was so kind and 
human, only the moonlight made it look very white. The next 
morning I then told her it was not strange that I should look 
odd, for I had seen a ghost. She started violently, and asked 
me to tell her what I saw. I described it as best I could, and 
she said that she had seen it, too, and she knew it to be the 
form and face of a valued friend. 

I should like to add that I have never before or after seen 
any kind of vision. 

A similar experience is related by General Froment 
(S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. v., page 54), and there are many 
others. 

The cause in both cases is very similar. In one there 
is a longing to consult with a dear friend, in the other 
intense longing for the old home. 

We now come to a very carefully authenticated case, 
in which the excursion is made at will. It was investi- 



EXCURSIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 85 

gated by Mr Gurney, and is published in Phantasms of 
the Living, vol. i., pages 104-109. 

Mr B. was well known to Mr Gurney, and described as 
a gentleman of a high character and good standing. He 
tells there how he made several excursions in the Spiritual 
Body, as a result of intense concentration and exertion of 
will power. These excursions are well evidenced, and have 
been carefully investigated. 

The accounts are as follows : — 



On a certain Sunday evening in November, 1881, having 
been reading of the great power which the human will is capable 
of exercising, I determined with the whole force of my being 
that I would be present in spirit in a certain house situated at 
22 Hogarth Road, Kensington, in which lived two ladies of 
my acquaintance, Miss L. S. V. and Miss E. C. V., aged respec- 
tively twenty-five and eleven years. I was living at this time 
in 23 Kildare Gardens, a distance of about three miles from 
Hogarth Road, and I had not mentioned in any way my "in- 
tention of trying this experiment to either of the above ladies, 
for the simple reason that it was only on retiring to rest upon 
this Sunday night that I made up my mind to do so. The 
time at which I determined that I would be there was one 
o'clock in the morning, and I also had a strong intention of 
making my presence perceptible. 

On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in 
question, and in the course of conversation, without any 
allusion to the subject on my part, the elder one told me that 
on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by 
perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed 
when the apparition advanced towards her and awoke her 
little sister, who saw me also. 

I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied 
most decidedly in the affirmative, and upon my inquiring the 
time of the occurrence, she replied almost one o'clock in the 
morning. 

The lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the 
event and signed it. This was the first occasion upon which 
I tried an experiment of this kind, and its complete success 
startled me very much. 



86 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly I 
put forth an effort which I cannot find words to describe, and 
was distinctly conscious of exercising some force of which I 
had not hitherto been acquainted, but which I can now at 
certain times set in motion at will. S. H. B. 

Miss Verity's account is as follows : — 

January i&th, 1883. 

On a certain Sunday evening at our house in Hogarth Road, 
I distinctly saw Mr B. in my room about one o'clock. I was 
perfectly awake, and much terrified. I awoke my sister by 
screaming, and she saw the apparition herself. 

Three days after this I saw Mr B. I told him what had 
happened, but it was some time before I could recover from 
the shock I had received, and the remembrance is too vivid 
to be ever erased from my memory. 

(Signed) L. S. Verity. 

In answer to Mr Gurney's inquiry, Miss Verity adds : 

I have never before had any hallucination of the senses 
whatever. 

Miss C. C. Verity says : 

I remember the occurrence of the event described by my 
sister in the annexed paragraph, and her description is quite 
correct. I saw the apparition which she saw at the same 
time and under the same circumstances. 

Miss A. S. Verity says : 

I remember the evening quite clearly, my sister awoke me 
by calling me from an adjoining bedroom, and upon my going 
to her bedside they both told me they had seen S. H. B. stand- 
ing in the room. The time was about one o'clock. 

A. S. Verity. 

The gas was turned low, and the sisters describe the 
figure as being seen with far more clearness than a real 



EXCURSIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 87 

figure would have been, probably owing to its being self- 
luminous (vide chap. xvi.). 

Here it will be noted the excursion is the result of intense 
will power and concentration of thought, and it is accom- 
plished during the deep sleep of the Material Body. Mr 
B. never succeeded in manifesting himself in the Spiritual 
Body when awake. The fact that there were two witnesses 
at one and the same time make the reality of the appear- 
ance beyond all question. This experience is not unique, 
for Mr Moule relates a similar one in vol. iii., pages 420, 
421, Proceedings S.P.R. 

There are very many cases of this excursion of the ego on 
record both in ancient and modern times, and the volumes 
of the S.P.R. contain several. The most wonderful is that 
of Mademoiselle Sagee,* related in Dale Owen's Footfalls on 
the Boundary of an Unseen World, page 251. 

Here is a good instance related by Mr Robert Kidd of 
Gray Street, Broughty Ferry : 

A few years ago I had a shop on the High Street of Dundee 
— one door and one window, a cellar underneath, the entrance 
to which was at one corner of the shop. There was no way of 
getting in or out of the cellar but by that stair and trap- door 
in the corner. It was lighted from the street by glass, but to 
protect that there was an iron grating, which was fixed down. 
Well, I had an old man, a servant, named Robert Chester. I 
sent him a message one forenoon about twelve o'clock ; he was 
in no hurry returning. I remarked to my daughter, who was 
bookkeeper, whose desk was just by the trap-door, that he 
was stopping long. Just as I spoke he passed the window, 
came in at the door, carrying a large dish under his arm, went 
right past me, past my daughter, who looked at him, and went 
down into the cellar. After a few minutes, as I heard no 
noise I remarked what he could be about, and went down to 



* This lady had to leave many situations, although highly com- 
petent, owing to the constant occurrence of this phenomenon, which 
was witnessed by scores of persons. 



88 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

see. There was no Robert there. I cannot tell what my 
sensations were when I realised this ; there was no possibility 
of his getting out, and we both of us saw and heard him go 
down. Well, in about twenty minutes he re-passed the window, 
crossed the floor, and went downstairs exactly as in the first 
time. There was no hallucination on our part this time. My 
daughter is a clever, highly-gifted woman ; I am seventy eight 
years of age, and have seen a great deal of the world, a great 
reader, etc., etc., and not easily deceived or apt to be led away 
by fancy, and I can declare that his first appearance to us was 
a reality as much as the second. We concluded, and so did 
all his relations, that it portended his death, but he is still 
alive, over eighty years of age. I give this just as it occurred, 
without any exaggeration whatever. 

I am well known about here, having filled many offices in 
Dundee, and have been twenty-five years a police commis- 
sioner, and five years a magistrate in this place, and am very 
well known to the Right Hon. C. Ritchie, and also to our 
county member. 

St Augustine himself tells us, in Sermon 233, how he was 
twice seen in places far distant from those occupied by his 
corporeal body. This takes us back to the fifth century, 
while my own case brings the record practically up to 
present times. This extraordinary faculty of the pro- 
jection or excursion of the ego has been manifested in my 
own person on many occasions during the last few years. 
Very many times have I been heard to come into the house, 
open the door of my study, pass upstairs, my footsteps being 
plainly audible. This has been heard both by my wife 
and children, and also by servants. On going to speak 
to me on these occasions they found no one there, but I 
invariably arrived a few minutes afterwards. At first I 
could scarcely believe these accounts, although the witnesses 
firmly protested their truth. On several occasions I have 
been seen where my corporeal body was certainly not present 
at the time. These experiences happened many times, as 
recorded in my journal, and almost invariably took place 
when I was hastening home or proceeding to some spot with 



EXCURSIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 89 

some fixed purpose in mind. The most remarkable and 
perfectly evidenced case occurred on Saturday, 21st October 
191 1. I had been visiting a parishioner, and left his house 
at East Wood, distant one and a quarter miles from my 
vicarage, about 7.30 p.m., and feeling tired and not well I 
hurried home. The night was dark and I did not meet 
a single person on the way. On arriving I found the 
servant and my little daughters in the house, they unbolt- 
ing the front door to admit me, my wife being out in the 
village. The servant, Ida, at once asked me how I had 
got into the house a short time previously, and where I 
had gone to afterwards, the children also putting the same 
question. 

I looked at them in astonishment, asking what they 
meant, and saying that I had not been in the house for a 
couple of hours or more. They then told me the following 
narrative. About twenty minutes before I arrived at the 
house they were all in the kitchen together. Ida was 
reading stories to them and my daughter Marjorie was 
drawing. Dorothy, my youngest daughter, began to cry. 
At this moment Ida, turning round, saw me walk down the 
passage and stand in the doorway leading into the kitchen, 
regarding them all intently. I had my tall hat on, and 
my long Inverness cloak, and she saw the glint of the light 
upon my spectacles. She at once cried : " Now, here's 
Pa, " to Dorothy, thinking to stop her crying. My daughters 
at once looked at the doorway and saw me standing there 
with my tall hat and Inverness cloak on. All saw me then 
turn round and walk up the passage. At that moment the 
servant remembered that she had bolted the front door. 
Wondering how I had got into the house, they all proceeded 
to the front door, which they found bolted and locked, and 
also found that all the windows were fastened ; the back 
door was also locked and bolted. I did not arrive at the 
house until about twenty minutes after they had thus 
seen me. 



9 o MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

At the time they ah saw me in the house I was mote than 
a mile away, hurrying along Weston Lane in the dark, 
not thinking of home particularly, but feeling ill and tired, 
and trudging doggedly along desiring to get there as quickly 
as possible. I was wearing a tall hat and Inverness cloak, 
and had on my spectacles. 

This experience is perfectly remembered by my daughters 
Marjorie and Dorothy, who have each written and signed 
an independent account of it.* 

* Attempts have been made to explain away not only these ex- 
cursions but all other modern psychic phenomena, and therefore, 
of course, all ancient ones also, including those of the Old and New 
Testaments, by the theory that they are creations of the subconscious 
mind of the observer, and that they are therefore subjective. Now, 
as several persons saw my apparition, at one and the same time, 
successively occupying different positions in space, it must have had 
objectivity of some kind. Again many apparitions of the deceased 
have been seen to open doors, which have remained open, to move 
objects, which have remained displaced (q.v.), and have been felt 
to touch the observers, clearly showing a definite objectivity. The 
subjective can never be objective. While, therefore, this theory of the 
subconscious mind may explain some mental phenomena, it can 
never explain heavy and solid materialisations, movements of heavy 
objects, telekinesis (the movement of objects without contact), or 
any other physical and objective psychic phenomena. 

Nor can it ever explain apparitions of deceased persons, especially 
those which give information unknown both to the percipient and 
also to the deceased in his or her mortal life, or which predict future 
events, afterwards accurately fulfilled. 



X 



CONCERNING APPEARANCES OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 
SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 

There is no people, rude or unlearned, among whom apparitions 
of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which 
prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could only become 
universal by its truth. Those that never heard of one another could 
not have agreed upon a tale which nothing but experience could 
make credible. — Dr Johnson. 

And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his 
face to the ground and bowed himself. — -i Samuel xxix. 14. 

FROM the earliest times the conviction that the spirits 
of men have been seen at or shortly after death is 
one so widely diffused that it may be termed 
universal, and few can engage in a prolonged study of 
these phenomena without being convinced of their reality. 
These occurrences are so common that there is scarcely a 
family the members of which cannot relate something 
bearing upon the subject, and the evidence is so full that it 
becomes cumulative and overwhelming in its intensity. 
In a great number of the instances brought forward in this 
chapter there is more than one witness or percipient. 
Therefore the idea of illusion or subjective hallucination is 
out of the question, especially as in some cases details were 
observed in the figure which were previously entirely un- 
known to the percipient, while in other cases the Spiritual 
Body is both seen and heard at the same time by two or 
more witnesses, precluding all possibility either of illusion 
or mistake. 

The fact that these apparitions often convey informa- 
tion unknown to the deceased when alive, and also to the 
percipient, and sometimes predict future events which are 
accurately fulfilled, and that this often occurs in cases 
where the deceased have been " dead " for many years 
{vide Chapters X. and XV.) is absolutely fatal to any theory 

9 1 



92 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of subjective hallucination, or the operations of the sub- 
conscious mind, as has just been shown. 

In the first case, I record my own experience and that 
of members of my own family. I have made a very care- 
ful investigation of the facts, and they have also been 
investigated by the S.P.R. I here give them as they are 
printed in the journal : 

Weston Vicarage, nr. Otley, Yorkshire, 
July 24, 1906. 

On the night of January 10, 1879, I had retired early to 
rest. I awoke out of my first sleep to find the moon shining 
into my room. As I awoke, my eyes were directed towards 
the panels of a cupboard or wardrobe built into the east wall 
of my room, and situated in the north-east corner. As 1 
gazed I suddenly saw a face form on the panels of the cup- 
board or wardrobe. Indistinct at first, it gradually became 
clearer until it was perfectly distinct as in life, when I saw the 
face of my grandmother. What particularly struck me at the 
moment and burnt itself into my recollection was the fact that 
the face wore an old-fashioned frilled or goffered cap. I gazed 
at it for a few seconds, during which it was as plain as the 
living face, when it faded gradually into the moonlight and 
was gone. I was not alarmed, but thinking that I had been 
deceived by the moonlight and that it was an illusion, I turned 
over and went off to sleep again. In the morning, when at 
breakfast, I began telling the experience of the night to my 
parents. I had got well into my story when to my surprise 
my father suddenly sprang up from his seat at the table, and 
leaving his food almost untouched hurriedly left the room. 
As he walked towards the door I gazed after him in amaze- 
ment, saying to mother, " Whatever is the matter with 
father ? " She raised her hand to enjoin silence. When the 
door was closed I again repeated my question. She replied, 
" Well, Charles, it is the strangest thing I have ever heard of, 
but when I awoke this morning your father informed me that 
he was awakened during the night and saw his mother standing 
by his bedside, and that when he raised himself to speak to 
her she glided away." This scene and conversation took place 
at about 8.30 a.m. on the morning of January 11. Before noon 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 93 

we received a telegram announcing the death of my father's 
mother during the night. 

We found that the matter did not end here, for my father 
was afterwards informed by his sister that she had also seen 
the apparition of her mother standing at the foot of her 
bed. 

Thus this remarkable apparition was manifested to three 
persons independently. My apartment in which I saw the 
vision was at the other side of the house to that occupied by 
my parents, and was entirely separate and apart from their 
room, while my father's sister was twenty miles away. My 
father noted the time as 2 a.m., but I did not take note of 
the time, but have since been able to ascertain it closely in 
the following way. The house in which we lived at the time 
faces due south, and the window of the apartment faces also 
due south. On the night of January 10-11, 1879, the moon 
was on the meridian at 14 hours 19 minutes Greenwich mean 
time — i.e. 2 hours 19 minutes a.m. on January 11. When 
on the meridian the moon illuminates the back and the east 
and west walls of the apartment. I am certain that the east 
wall of the room was illuminated (for there -I saw the face in 
the moonlight) and also the back of the room or north wall. 
The moon was therefore approximately on the meridian, and 
the time close on 2 a.m., thus confirming my father's observa- 
tion in an unexpected manner. The death of my grandmother 
took place at 12.15, an d it is certain from the above considera- 
tions that the apparition to myself and my father occurred 
nearly two hours after death. 

My father died in 1885, but my mother is living and well 
remembers all the details. Her confirmatory letter is given 
below. In the case of the apparition to my aunt this did not 
take place until upwards of eighteen hours after death. I had 
not seen my grandmother for some years previous to her 
appearance to me. 

It is absolutely certain that the apparition occurred to 
each of the three independent witnesses after the death, and 
that this case is therefore an unmistakable instance of appari- 
tions of the dead and proof that the personality survives. I 
am prepared at any time to make this statement on oath. 

(Signed) Charles L. Tweedale, F.R.S.A., 
Vicar of Weston. 



94 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

The following are letters from my mother and uncle, 
which were enclosed with this account : 



Victor Place, Crawshawbooth, nr Rawtenstall, 
Lancashire, June 22, 1906. 

I have carefully read my son's account of the strange appear- 
ance to him and my late husband, Dr Tweedale. I perfectly 
well remember the matter, my son telling us of what he had 
seen and my husband telling me of the apparition to him, 
also the telegram informing us of the death during the night. 

I distinctly remember my husband also being informed by 
his sister of the appearance to her. 

(Signed) Mary Tweedale. 



Walkley, Sheffield, 
June 16, 1906. 

Dear Nephew, — With reference to this matter, I have 
great pleasure in giving you the following particulars. 

I can vouch for the truth of these details, as she died at my 
house in Heckmondwike on Saturday morning, January 11, 
1879, at 12.15 A - M - She was dying all day on Friday, January 
10, and passed away soon after midnight, as above stated, 
according to the entry in my diary made at the time. 

Between my wife and her mother a very close affection 
existed, and by a strange fate they both were confined to 
bed at the same time, the daughter daily expecting the birth 
of her child and the mother sick with what proved to be her 
last illness. The situation was a very pathetic one, as my 
wife only saw her mother once when I carried her helpless in 
my arms to her mother's bedside. When " Grandma " died, 
by the doctor's orders the news of her death was carefully kept 
from my wife. 

On Saturday night she was left alone for a short time, when 
she saw her mother standing at the foot of the bed. The 
figure, beholding her distress, spoke to her, and then immedi- 
ately vanished. This would be upwards of eighteen hours 
after Grandma had passed away, my wife being then in total 
ignorance of her mother's death. I and my daughter well 
remember her relating this experience to us in after life. 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 95 

You ask me if the sketch you sent of the frilled cap seen by 
you is correct. Yes, remarkably so, and reproduces exactly 
the cap worn by your Grandmother Tweedale all the time she 
was ill and in which she died, so that your description of what 
you saw of her fully represents her appearance at the time she 
passed away. The above is a plain statement of the whole 
matter, and I can vouch for the truth in every particular, and 
shall be ready if required to affirm the same on oath. 

(Signed) J. Hodgson. 

This remarkable experience cannot be explained away 
by any of the usual anti-spiritual theories which invoke 
dormant telepathy, simple hallucination, collective hallu- 
cination, or local picture. There are three witnesses of the 
appearance, each entirely independent, and one is separated 
by a distance of twenty miles from the others. 

The following is an impressive instance of the appearance 
of a dear friend. It is audible and visual, and is found in 

S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. v., page 413. Colonel (who 

was well known to Messrs Gurney and Myers) there writes 
as follows : — 

I am not a believer in ghosts or spirit manifestations. It 
has been my lot to sleep in well known, or rather well believed 
to be, haunted rooms. I have endeavoured to encounter 
"ghosts," spirits, or beings (if you like) from another world, 
but like other good things that one seeks for in life, without 
success. When I least expected it, however, I experienced a 
visitation so remarkable in its phenomena, so realistic in its 
nature, so supported by actual facts, that I am constrained, at 
the request of my friends, to put my experience into writing. 

The narrator then describes how, nearly twenty-three 
years before, he had formed a friendship with two brother 
subalterns, J. P. and J. S., and how his intercourse with 
J. P. had been continued at intervals up to the time of 
the Transvaal War. When J. P. was ordered out on the 
staff, J. S. was already on the scene of action. Both had 



96 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

now attained major's rank ; the narrator himself had left 
the service some years previously. 

On the morning that J. P. was leaving London to embark 
for the Cape, he invited the narrator to breakfast with him 
at the Club, and they finally parted at the Club door. 

" Good-bye, old fellow," he said, " we shall meet again, I 
hope." 

" Yes," he said ; " we shall meet again." 

I can see him now, as he stood, smart and erect, with his 
bright black eyes looking intently into mine. A wave of the 
hand as the hansom whirled him off, and he was gone. 

The Transvaal War was at its height. One night, after 
reading for some time in the library of the Club, I had gone 
to my rooms late. It must have been nearly one o'clock 
before I turned into bed. I had slept, perhaps, several hours, 
when I awoke with a start. The grey dawn was stealing in 
through the windows, and the light fell sharply and distinctly 
on the military chest of drawers which stood at the further end 
of the room, and which I carried about with me everywhere 
during my service. Standing by my bed, between me and the 
chest of drawers, I saw a figure, which in spite of the unwonted 
dress — unwonted at least to me — and of a full black beard, 
I at once recognised as that of my old brother officer. He had 
on the usual khaki suit worn by officers on active service in 
Eastern climates. A brown leather strap, which might have 
been the strap of his field service glass, crossed his breast. A 
brown leather girdle, with sword attached on the left side 
and revolver case on the right, passed round his waist. On his 
head he wore the ordinary white pith helmet of the service. 
I noted all these particulars in the moment that I started from 
sleep and sat up in bed looking at him. His face was pale, 
but his bright black eyes shone as keenly as when, a year and 
a half before, they had looked upon me as he stood with 
one foot on the hansom bidding me adieu. 

Fully impressed for the brief moment that we were stationed 

together at C , in Ireland, or somewhere, and thinking 

I was in the barrack room, I said : " Hallo, P., am I late for 
parade ? "- P. looked at me steadily and replied : " I'm shot." 

" Shot ! " I exclaimed. " Good God, hew and where ? " 

"Through the lungs!" replied P., and as he spoke his 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 97 

right hand moved slowly up the breast, until the fingers 
rested over the right lung. 

" What were you doing ? " I asked. 

"The General sent me forward/' he answered, and the 
right hand left the breast to move slowly to the front, point- 
ing over my head to the window, and at the same moment the 
figure melted away. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was not 
dreaming, and sprang out of bed. 

I felt sure that my old friend was no more, and what I 
had seen was only an apparition. But how to account for 
the voice, the ready and distinct answers ? That I had seen 
a spirit, certainly something that was not flesh and blood, 
and that I had conversed with it, were alike indisputable 
facts. But how to reconcile these apparent impossibilities ? 
The thought disquieted me, and I longed for the hour when 
the Club would open and I could get a chance of learning 
from the papers any news from the seat of war in the Transvaal. 
The hours passed feverishly. I was first at the Club that 
morning, and snatched greedily at the first paper. No news 
of the war whatever. 

I passed the day in a more or less unquiet mood, and 
talked over the whole circumstances to an old brother officer, 

Colonel W . He was as fully impressed as I was with the 

story of the appearance. The following morning I was again 
a solitary member of the Club, and seized with avidity the first 
paper that came to hand. This time my anxiety was pain- 
fully set at rest, for my eye fell at once on the brief lines that 
told of the battle of Laing's Nek, and on the list of killed, 
foremost among them all being poor J. P. I noted the time 
the battle was fought, calculated it with the hour at which I 
had seen the figure, and found that it almost coincided. From 
this simple fact I could only surmise that the figure had 
appeared to me in London almost at the very moment that 
the fatal bullet had done its work in the Transvaal. 

Two questions now arose to my mind. First, as to proof 
that poor P. happened to wear that particular uniform at the 
time of his death — and whether he carried a beard — which I 
myself had never seen him wear. Second, whether he met 
his death in the manner indicated — viz. by a bullet through 
the right lung. The first facts I established beyond dispute 
about six months afterwards, through an officer who was at 
the battle of Laing's Nek, and who had been invalided home. 



9 8 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

He confirmed every detail. The second fact, strangely enough, 
was confirmed by no less a person than J. S., more than a year 
after the occurrence, he having also left the Cape, the war 
being over. On asking J. S. if he had heard how poor P., 
our old brother officer, was shot, he replied : " Just here,"- 
and his fingers travelled up his breast, exactly as the fingers 
of the figure had done, until they rested on the very spot 
over the right lung. 

I have set down the foregoing, without any attempt at 
embellishment, exactly as everything occurred. 

We find from The London Gazette that the battle in which 
Major P. was killed began (according to General Colley's 
dispatch) at 9.30 a.m. on 28th January 1881. 

The battle opened by the artillery under Major Poole 
bombarding the heights. Afterwards, towards the end of 
the action, Major Poole took part in storming the heights. 
Under the deadly fire of the Boers they were repulsed, the 
dead lying in swathes where they fell, their white helmets 
having enabled the hidden enemy to mark them down 
with deadly precision. Major Poole and another officer 
were found lying dead, well in front of the men they were 
leading. The news of Major Poole's death first appeared 
in The Observer on Sunday, 30th January, and in The Times, 
Telegraph, and Daily News on Monday, 31st January : 

Killed, Major Poole, Royal Artillery. 

In this most interesting case there is a half compact. 
The friends saying : " We shall meet again." " Yes, we 
shall meet again." Appearances in fulfilment of a definite 
compact will be treated in another chapter. 

It has often been said by those who scoff at these things 
that they invariably manifest themselves to persons in 
poor health and of weak nerves. As if to give this the 
lie it is remarkable that a large proportion of them, as in 
the above case, are witnessed by men in the naval and 
military professions, where rude health and good nerves 
are the rule and not the exception. 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 99 

Medical men are usually gifted with keen observation 
and strong nerves, yet they are often percipients, as in the 
following narrative. 

Here the appearance is of a remarkable type, and the 
dress such as is not associated with invalids or death- 
beds. The spiritual body carried with it the details of its 
actual aspect and associations at the moment of death, 
all being accurately manifested. The appearance is men- 
tioned to the uncle who notes the time, nothing being left 
to the percipient's imagination, and the times of the 
death and appearance coincide to a minute. No theory of 
hallucination will meet this case. Dr Rowland Boustead, 
of Caistor, thus tells the story, and says, moreover, that 
he never had any similar experience. 

In September, 1847, I was playing at a cricket match and 
took the place of long field. A ball was driven in my direc- 
tion which I ought to have caught but missed, and it rolled 
towards a low hedge. I and another lad ran after it. When 
I got near the hedge I saw the apparition of my brother-in- 
law, who was much endeared to me, over the hedge, dressed 
in a shooting suit with a gun on his arm. He smiled and 
waved his hand to me. I called the attention of the other 
boy to it, but he did not see it although he looked in the 
same direction. When I looked again the figure had vanished. 
I, feeling very sad at the time, went up to my uncle and told 
him of what I had seen, and he took out his watch and noted 
the time, ten minutes to one. 

Note the sequel. 

Two days after I received a letter from my father inform- 
ing me of the death of my brother-in-law which took place 
at ten minutes to one. His death was singular, for on that 
morning he said he was much better and thought he would 
be able to shoot again. Taking up his gun he turned round 
to my father asking him if he had sent for me, as he particu- 
larly wished to see me. My father replied that the distance was 
so far and the expense too great to send for me, it being over 
one hundred miles. At this he put himself into a passion, 
and said that he would see me in spite of them all, for he did 
not care for expense or for distance. Suddenly a blood 



ioo MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

vessel on his lungs burst and he died at once. He was at the 
time dressed in a shooting suit, and had his gun on his arm 1 
— Proceedings S.P.R., vol. ii. 179. 

Instances of the apparition of the spiritual body accom- 
panied by other figures are rare, apart from the phenomena 
of materialisation, although I have had spontaneous cases 
of double materialisation and double apparition in my own 
vicarage of Weston, but the following is a well-attested 
case. One is here irresistibly reminded of the appearance 
of the spiritual bodies of Moses and Elias on the Mount of 
Transfiguration. This instance is very notable from the 
fact that not only are several figures seen, two of which 
are recognised, but they are seen by two percipients. It is 
impossible to explain this case by any theory of latent 
telepathy, or of subjective hallucination. 

Philip Weld was the youngest son of Mr James Weld of 
Archer's Lodge, near Southampton, and a nephew of the 
late Cardinal Weld. (The chief seat of that ancient family 
is Lulworth Castle, in Dorsetshire.) 

He was sent by his father, in 1842, to St Edmund's 
College, near Ware, in Hertfordshire, for his education. 

It happened that on 16th April 1845 it was a playday 
or whole holiday. In the afternoon Philip, accompanied 
by one of the masters and some of his companions, went to 
boat on the river, and accidentally fell out into a very 
deep part, and, notwithstanding every effort that was made 
to save him, was drowned. 

His corpse was brought back to the College, and the 
very Rev. Dr Cox (the president) was immensely shocked 
and grieved, he being very fond of Philip, but what was 
most dreadful to him was to have to break the sad news to 
the boy's parents. He scarcely knew what to do, whether 
to write by post or to send a messenger. At last he made 
up his mind to go himself to Mr Weld at Southampton. 
He set off the same afternoon, and passing through London 
reached Southampton the next day, and drove from thence 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 101 

to Archer's Lodge, the residence of Mr Weld, but before 
entering the grounds he saw Mr Weld at a short distance 
from his gate walking towards the town. 

Dr Cox immediately stopped the carriage, alighted, 
and was about to address Mr Weld when he prevented him 
by saying : 

You need not say one word, for I know that Philip is 
dead. Yesterday afternoon I was walking with my daughter 
Katherine and we suddenly saw him. He was standing on 
the path on the opposite side of the turnpike road between 
two persons, one of whom was a youth dressed in a black 
robe. My daughter was the first to perceive them, and ex- 
claimed : " Oh, papa, did you ever see anyone so like Philip ? " 
" Like him," I answered. " Why, it is him." Strange to say 
my daughter thought nothing of the circumstance beyond 
that we had seen an extraordinary likeness of her brother. 
We walked on towards these three figures. Philip was look- 
ing with a smiling, happy expression of countenance at the 
young man in a black robe, who was shorter than himself. 
Suddenly they all seemed to have vanished. I saw nothing 
but a countryman, whom I had before seen through the 
three figures, which gave me the impression that they were 
spirits. I, however, said nothing to anyone, as I was fearful 
of alarming my wife." 

The reader may imagine how inexpressibly astonished 
Dr Cox was at these words. He asked Mr Weld if he had 
ever before seen the young man in the black robe at whom 
Philip was looking with such a happy smile. Mr Weld 
answered that he had never before seen him, but that his 
countenance was so indelibly impressed on his mind that 
he was certain he should have known him at once anywhere. 

Dr Cox then related to the afflicted father all the cir- 
cumstances of his son's death, which had taken place at 
the very hour in which he appeared to his father and 
sister, and they felt much consolation on account of the 
placid smile Mr Weld had remarked on the countenance 



102 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of his son, as it seemed to indicate that he had died in the 
grace of God, and was consequently happy. 

Mr Weld went to the funeral of his son, and as he left 
the church after the sad ceremony looked round to see if 
any of the religious students at all resembled the young 
man he had seen with Philip, but he could not trace the 
slightest likeness in any of them. 

About four months after, he and his family paid a visit 
to his brother, Mr George Weld, at Seagram Hall, in Lanca- 
shire. One day he walked with his daughter Katherine to 
the neighbouring village of Chipping, and after attending 
a service at the church called upon the priest. 

It was a little time before the reverend father was at 
leisure to come to them, and they amused themselves 
meantime by examining the prints hanging on the walls 
of the room. Suddenly Mr Weld stopped before a picture 
which had no name that one could see written under it 
(as the frame covered the bottom) and exclaimed : " That 
is the person whom I saw with Philip, I do not know whose 
likeness this print is, but I am certain that it was that 
person whom I saw with Philip." 

The priest entered the room a few moments afterwards, 
and was immediately questioned by Mr Weld concerning 
the print. He answered that it was a print of St Stanislaus 
Kostka, and supposed to be a very good likeness. 

Mr Weld was very much moved on hearing this, for St 
Stanislaus was a Jesuit who died when quite young, and 
Mr Weld's father had been a great benefactor of that Order, 
also Philip had been led of late, by various circumstances, 
to a particular devotion of St Stanislaus. 

Moreover, St Stanislaus is supposed to be the especial 
advocate of drowned men, as is mentioned in his life. 

The reverend father instantly presented the picture to 
Mr Weld, who received it with great veneration, and kept 
it until death. 

His wife valued it equally, and at her death it passed 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 103 

into the possession of the daughter who saw the appari- 
tion at the same time as he did, and it is now in her 
possession. 

In answer to an inquiry as to whether she ever had had 
any other hallucinations of the senses Miss Weld replied 
that the above was a totally unique experience (Pro- 
ceedings S.P.R., vol. ii. 182). 

We now come to a case not only visual but audible, the 
sounds having a peculiar significance. It is furnished by 

Colonel , a well-known Irish gentleman. We are not 

allowed to publish his name, but it is well known to the 
S.P.R. officials. He writes from Arthur's on 1st March 
1885 (Proceedings S.P.R. , vol. hi. 92). 

Some sixteen years since Mrs said to me : " We have 

some people staying here all next week. Do you know any 
person I could get to sing with the girls ? " I suggested that 
my gun-maker, Mr X., had a daughter with a fine voice who 

was training as a public singer, and that if she, Mrs , 

liked I would write to X. and ask if he would allow her to 
come down and spend a week with us. On my wife's approval 
I wrote, and Miss X. came down for a week and then left. 

As far as I know Mrs never saw her again. Shortly after 

that I called on X., thanked him for allowing his daughter to 
come to us, and said we were all much pleased with her. X. 
replied, " I fear you have spoiled her, for she says she never 
passed so happy a week in her life." Miss X. did not come 
out as a singer, but shortly after married Mr Z., and none of 
us ever saw her again. Six or seven years passed away, and 

Mrs , who had long been ill, was dying, in fact she did 

die the following day. I was sitting at the foot of her bed 
talking over some business matters that she was anxious to 
arrange, being perfectly composed and in thorough possession 
of her senses, in fact she was right, and my solicitor, who ad- 
vised that the step she wanted to be taken was unnecessary, 
•was wrong. She changed the subject, and said, " Do you 
hear those voices singing ? " I replied that I did not, and she 
said, " I have heard them several times to-day, and I am sure 
they are the angels welcoming me to Heaven, but,'' she added, 
" it is strange there is one voice among them I am sure I know 



104 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

and cannot remember whose voice it is." Suddenly she 
stopped and said, pointing straight over my head, "Why, 
there she is in the corner of the room, it is Julia X., she is 
coming on, she is leaning over you, she has her hands up, 
she is praying, do look, she is going." I turned but could 

see nothing. Mrs then said, " She is gone." All these 

things I imagined to be the phantasies of a dying person. 

Two days afterwards, taking up The Times newspaper, 
I saw recorded the death of Julia X., wife of Mr Z. I was 
so astounded, that in a day or two after the funeral I went 

up to and asked Mr X. if Mrs Z., his daughter, was dead. 

He said, " Yes, poor thing, she died of puerperal fever. On 
the day she died she began singing in the morning, and sang, 
and sang until she died." 

I now wrote Mr Z. telling him shortly what I have now 
written at length. Mr Z.'s answer was that I had described 
so accurately the scene of his wife's death that he would like 
to see me, he was coming up to London the week after and 
would I call. 

Colonel , in a subsequent letter, says Mrs died 

February 3rd, 1874, at about four in the evening. Mrs Z. 
(Mrs Webley) died February 2, 1874, at six or thereabouts in 
the morning. I saw Mr Gurney, who carefully investigated 
this case, and received the following confirmatory letter from 
Mr Webley, the Mr Z. of the above account. 

84 Wenman Street, Birmingham, 
May 18, 1885. 
Dear Sir, — In reply to your letter I shall be happy to give 
you the information asked for. My wife died on February 2, 
1874, at about 5.30 a.m. The last hours of her life were spent 
in singing, and beautiful as her voice was, I never before 
heard it so exquisitely beautiful as then. 
Yours sincerely, 

Henry Webley. 

Some similar experience must have been in the mind of 
Dr Young when he wrote : 

The Chamber where the good man meets his fate 

Is privileged above the common walks of virtuous life 

Quite in the verge of heaven. 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 105 

There are many cases where beautfiul music and voices 
are heard, one, as will be afterwards related, occarring in 
my own house, but few in which both voice and features 
are recognised, and this is especially remarkable. 

The following peculiarly interesting experience of a noted 
judge and lawyer, Sir Edmund Hornby, late Chief Judge 
of the Supreme Consular Court of China, and Japan, who 
describes himself as " a lawyer by education, family and 
tradition, wanting in imagination and no believer in 
miracles," is taken from The Nineteenth Century for July, 
1884. Sir Edmund first narrates how it was his custom at 
Shanghai to allow reporters to come to his house to get his 
written judgments for the next day's paper, and he goes 
on to say : 



They generally availed themselves of the opportunity, 
especially one reporter, who was also the editor of an evening 
paper. He was a peculiar man, reticent about himself, and 
I imagine had a history. In appearance he was also peculiar. 
I only knew him as a reporter, and had no other relations 
with him. On the day when the event occurred, in 1875, 
I went to my study an hour or two after dinner, and wrote 
out my judgment. It then was about half-past eleven. I 
rang for the butler, gave him the envelope, and told him to 
give it to the reporter who should call for it. I was in bed 
before twelve. I am a very light sleeper, and my wife a very 
heavy one. Indeed, it is difficult to rouse her out of her first 
sleep. The bed — a French one — faced the fireplace ; on the 
mantelpiece was a clock, and the gas in the chandelier was 
turned down, but only so low as to admit of my seeing the 
time of the night, for — waking easily and frequently — I often 
smoked a cigarette before I went to sleep again, and always 
desired to know the hour. 

I had gone to sleep, when I was awakened by hearing a 
tap at the study door, but thinking it might be the butler — 
looking to see if the fire were safe and the gas turned off — I 
turned over with the view of getting to sleep again. Before 
I did so I heard a tap at my bedroom door. Still thinking it 
might be the butler, who might have something to say, I said, 



106 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

" Come in." The door opened, and, to my surprise, in walked 

Mr . I sat up and said, " You have mistaken the door ; 

but the butler has the judgment, so go and get it." Instead 
of leaving the room he came to the foot edge of the bed. I 

said, " Mr , you forget yourself I Have the goodness to 

walk out directly. This is rather an abuse of my favour.' 2 
He looked deadly pale, but was dressed in his usual dress, and 
was certainly quite sober and staid, " I know I am guilty of 
an unwarrantable intrusion, but finding you were not in your 
study I have ventured to come." I was losing my temper, 
but something in the man's manner disinclined me to jump out 
of bed to eject him by force. So I said simply : " This is too 
bad, really ; pray leave the room at once." Instead of 
doing so, he put one hand on the footrail and gently, as if 
in pain, sat down on the foot of the bed. I glanced at the 
clock and saw that it was about twenty minutes past one. 
I said, " The butler has had the judgment since half -past 
eleven ; go and get it." He said, " Pray forgive me ; if 
you knew all the circumstances you would. Time presses. 
Pray give me a precis of your judgment, and I will take 
a note in my book of it," drawing his reporter's book out of 
his breast pocket. I said, " I will do nothing of the kind. Go 
downstairs, find the butler, and don't disturb me — you will 
wake my wife ; otherwise I shall have to put you out.'' He 
slightly moved his head. I said, " Who let you in ? Are 
you drunk ? " He replied, " No, and never shall be again ; 
but I pra}^ your lordship give me your decision, for my time 
is short." I said, " You don't seem to care about my time, 
and this is the last time I will ever allow a reporter in my 
house." He stopped me short, saying, " This is the last time 
I shall ever see you anywhere." 

Well, fearful that this commotion might arouse and frighten 
my wife, I shortly gave him the gist of my judgment in as few 
words as I could. He seemed to be taking it down in short- 
hand ; it might have taken two or three minutes. When I 
finished, he rose, thanked me for excusing his intrusion and 
for the consideration I had always shown him and his colleagues, 
opened the door, and went away. I looked at the clock ; 
it was on the stroke of half-past one. 

Lady Hornby now awoke, thinking she had heard talking ; 
and I told her what had happened, and repeated the account 
when dressing next morning. 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 107 

I went to the court a little before ten. The usher came 
into my room to robe me, when he said, " A sad thing 

happened last night, sir. Poor was found dead in his 

room." I said, " Bless my soul ! What did he die of, and 
when ? " "Well, sir, it appears he went up to his room as 
usual at ten to work his papers. His wife went up about 
twelve to ask him when he would be ready for bed. He said, 
' I have only the judge's judgment to get ready, and then I 
have finished." As he did not come, she went up again, 
about a quarter to one, to his room and peeped in, and thought 
she saw him writing, but she did not disturb him. At half- 
past one she again went to him and spoke to him at the door. 
As he did not answer she thought he had fallen asleep, so she 
went up to rouse him. To her horror he was dead. On the 
floor was his notebook, which I have brought away. She sent 
for the doctor, who arrived a little after two, and said he had 
been dead, he concluded, about an hour." I looked at the 
notebook. There was the usual heading : 

" In the Supreme Court, before the Chief Judge. 

" v. . 

" The Chief Judge gave judgment this morning in this case 
to the following effect " — and then followed a few lines of 
undecipherable shorthand. 

I sent for the magistrate who would act as coroner, and 

desired him to examine Mr 's wife and servants as to 

whether Mr had left his home, or could possibly have 

left it without their knowledge, between eleven and one the 
previous night. The result of the inquest showed he died 
of some form of heart disease, and had not, and could not 
have left his house without the knowledge of at least his wife, 
if not of his servants. Not wishing to air "my spiritual 
experience " for the benefit of the Press or the public, I kept 
the matter at the time to myself, only mentioning it to my 
Puisne judge and to one or two of my friends ; but when I 
got home to tiffin I asked my wife to tell me as nearly as she 
could remember what I had said to her during the night, and 
I made a brief note of her replies and of the facts. 

[Lady Hornby has kindly confirmed the above facts as far 
as she was cognizant of them.] 

I may add that I had examined the butler in the morning 



108 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

— who had given me back the MS. in the envelope when I 
went to the court after breakfast — as to whether he had locked 
the door as usual, and if anyone could have got in. He said 
that he had done everything as usual. 

The reporter's residence was about a mile and a quarter 
from where I lived, and his infirmities prevented him from 
walking any distance except slowly ; in fact, he invariably 
drove. 

The fact that the apparition opened the door, and also 
spoke and carried on an intelligent conversation bearing 
on the situation, is to be particularly noted as showing 
objectivity and personality. 

The next case is interesting as a further evidence that 
animals have as distinct a perception of apparitions as 
human beings have. In fact in many instances their per- 
ception appears to be superior to that of the average 
human being. It is taken from the journal of the S.P.R. 

The narrator writes : 

Here is the account of the phenomenon of which all our 
family were witnesses. It was at St Petersburg in 1880, when 
we were living in Pouchkarska Street. One evening in May, 
about six o'clock, my mother was in the drawing-room with 
five children, of whom I was the eldest, being about sixteen. 
All of a sudden the children's play ceased, and the general 
attention was directed to our dog " Moustache," who, barking 
furiously, rushed towards the stove. We all glanced in the 
same direction and saw on the surface of the large china stove 
a little boy of about five years of age, in his shirt, whom we 
recognised as Andre, the son of our dairymaid. The appari- 
tion left the stove, passed over the heads of all of us, and 
vanished through the open window. During the whole time 
the dog never left off barking with all his might, and ran and 
barked as he followed the movements of the apparition. A 
little later our dairymaid came to our house and informed us 
that her son Andre had just died — probably at the moment 
when we saw him appear. 

The validity and utility of prayers for the dead has 
often given rise to bitter controversy in the Churches. 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 109 

Here is a case contributed by the well-known Russian 
scientist, the Hon. Alexander Aksakof (Proceedings S. P. R., 
vol. vi., page 355), bearing upon the question : 

The Pereliguine Case 

Document I. — Copy of report of sitting held November 18th, 
1887, in the house of M. Nartzeff, at Tambof, Russia. 

Present : M. A. Nartzeff [landed proprietor, belonging to 
the Russian nobility, in the Government of Tambof] ; Madame 
A. Slepzof ; Madame Ivanof ; M. N. Touloucheff [official 
physician of the Municipality of Tambof]. 

The sitting began at 10 p.m. at a table placed in the middle 
of the room, by the light of a night-light placed on the mantel- 
piece. All doors closed. The left hand of each was placed 
on the right hand of his neighbour and each foot touched the 
neighbour's foot, so that during the whole of the sitting all 
hands and feet were under control. Sharp raps were heard 
in the floor, and afterwards in the wall and the ceiling, after 
which the blows sounded immediately in the middle of the 
table, as if someone had struck it from above with his fist ; 
and with such violence, and so often, that the table trembled 
the whole time. 

M. Nartzeff asked, " Can you answer rationally, giving 
three raps for yes, one for no ? " " Yes." " Do you wish 
to answer by using the alphabet ? " " Yes." " Spell your 
name." The alphabet was repeated, and the letters indicated 
by three raps — " Anastasie Pereliguine." " I beg you to say 
now why you have come and what you desire." " I am a 
wretched woman. Pray for me. Yesterday, during the day, 
I died at the hospital. The day before yesterday I poisoned 
myself with matches." " Give us some details about yourself. 
How old were you ? Give a rap for each year." Seventeen 
raps. " Who were you ? " "I was housemaid. I poisoned 
myself with matches." " Why did you poison yourself ? " 
" I will not say. I will say nothing more." 

(Signed) A. Slepzof, N. Touloucheff, 
A. Nartzeff, A. Ivanof. 

I certify that this copy is in complete accordance with the 
original. A. Nartzeff. 

Document II. — The undersigned, having been present at the 



no MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

sitting of November 18th, 1887, at the house of M. A. N. 
Nartzeff, hereby certify that they had no previous knowledge 
of the existence or the death of Anastasie Pereliguine, and 
that they heard her name for the first time at the above- 
mentioned sitting. 

N. P. TOULOUCHEFF, ALEXIS NaRTZEFF, 

A. Slepzof, A. Ivanof. 
Tambof, April 6th, 1890. 

Document III. — Letter of Dr Touloucheff to M. A. Aksakof. 

April 15th, 1890. 

Sir, — At the sitting held at M. Nartzeff's house, November 
1 8th, 1887, we received a communication from an intelligence 
giving the name of Anastasie Pereliguine. She asked us to 
pray for her, and said that she had poisoned herself with lucifer 
matches, and had died on the 17th of that month. At the 
first moment I did not believe this ; for in my capacity as 
physician of the municipality I am at once informed by the 
police of all cases of suicide. But since Pereliguine had added 
that her death had taken place at the hospital ; and since at 
Tambof we have only one hospital, that of the " Institutions 
de Bienfaisance," which is in no way within my official survey, 
and whose authorities, in such cases as this, themselves send 
for the police or the magistrate ; — I sent a letter to my colleague, 
Dr Sundblatt, the head physician of this hospital. Without 
explaining my reason I simply asked him to inform me whether 
there had been any recent case of suicide at the hospital, and, 
if so, to give me the name and particulars. I have already 
sent you a copy of his reply, certified by Dr Sundblatt's own 
signature. The original is at M. Nartzeff's house, with the 
protocols of the sittings. 

N. Touloucheff. 

Tambof, rue de Seminaire. 

Document IV. — Copy of Dr Th. Sundblatt's letter to Dr 
Touloucheff. 

November igth, 1887. 

My dear Colleague, — On the 16th of this month I was on 
duty ; and on that day two patients were admitted to the 
hospital, who had poisoned themselves with phosphorus. The 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH in 

first, Vera Kosovitch, aged 38, wife of a clerk in the public 
service . . . was taken in at 8 p.m. ; the second, a servant in 
the insane ward [a part of the hospital], Anastasie Pereliguine, 
aged 17, was taken in at 10 p.m. This second patient had 
swallowed, besides an infusion of boxes of matches, a glass of 
kerosine, and at the time of her admission was already very 
ill. She died at 1 p.m. on the 17th, and the post-mortem 
examination has been made to-day. Kosovitch died yesterday 
and the post-mortem is fixed for to-morrow. Kosovitch said 
that she had taken the phosphorus in an access of melancholy, 
but Pereliguine did not state her reason for poisoning herself. 

Th. Sundblatt. 

With reference to these two cases, I have personally 
received similar requests for prayer on several occasions 
from the departed in the presence of other witnesses, and 
we have also had an instance in our own house of an 
animal perceiving an apparition. 

Similar requests for prayer have been received by many 
other investigators. There is abundant evidence to show 
that the departed are in some instances helped and enabled 
to make their first advance in the spirit world not so much 
by angel ministry as by the sympathy, forgiveness, and 
prayer of those still in this mortal life. 

The following case, sent to the Society by Rev. G. M. 
Sandy, Vicar of West Ward, near Wigtown, is an instance 
of the apparition of one cleric to another, and was brought 
to the Society's notice by the Bishop of Carlisle, one of its 
vice-presidents (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v., page 409). 

When at Loweswater I one day called upon a friend who 
said, " You do not see many newspapers, take one of those 
lying there." I accordingly took up a newspaper bound 
with a wrapper, put it into my pocket and walked home. 
In the evening I was writing, and wanting to refer to another 
book, went into another room where my books were. I placed 
the candle on a ledge of the bookcase and found the passage 
I wanted, when happening to look towards the window, which 
was opposite to the bookcase, I saw through the window the 
face of an old friend whom I had known well at Cambridge, 



ii2 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

but had not seen for ten years or more, Canon Robinson (of 
the Charity School Commission). I was so sure I saw him that 
I went out to look for him, but could find no trace of him. I 
went back into the house and thought I would take a look at 
my newspaper. I tore off the wrapper, unfolded the paper, 
and the first piece of news that I saw was the death of Canon 
Robinson ! 

Mr Sandy further writes : 

In reply to your note, October 6, I may state with regard 
to the narrative I detailed to the Bishop of Carlisle, that I 
saw the face looking through the window by the light of a 
single Ozokerit candle placed on the ledge of the bookcase, 
which stood opposite the window, that I was standing with 
the candle by my side, reading from a book to which I had 
occasion to refer, and raising my eyes as I read, I saw the face 
clearly and distinctly, ghastly pale, but with the features so 
marked and so distinct that I recognised it at once as the face 
of my most dear and intimate friend, the late Canon Robinson, 
who was with me at school and at College. Almost immedi- 
ately after, fully persuaded that my old friend had come to 
pay me a surprise visit, I rushed to the door, but seeing nothing 
called aloud, searched the premises most carefully, and made 
inquiry as to whether any stranger had been seen near my 
house, but no one had been heard or seen. When I last saw 
Canon Robinson he was apparently in perfect health, much 
more likely to outlive me than I him, and before I opened 
the newspaper announcing his death I had not heard or read 
of his illness or death, and there was nothing in the passage 
of the book I was reading to lead me to think of him. 

One often hears the expression, Why do not these things 
appear in broad daylight instead of in dim, uncertain 
night, or by the feeble rays of the moon ? As a matter of 
fact, the appearance sometimes does take place in broad day- 
light, as proved by many of the experiences of myself and 
family, and even in bright sunshine, as will be apparent from 
the following carefully attested case (Proceedings S.P.R., 
vol. v., page 93). 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 113 

The following narrative is abridged from Temple Bar 
for December, 1882. The writer is the Rev. Gerard Lewis, 
of St Paul's Vicarage, Margate, who in a letter to 
Mr Podmore, dated 30th December 1882, says : 

I have nothing to add to my true ghost story in Temple 
Bar. I should not like the young man's name to be pub- 
lished, but will give it you in confidence. As to dates, he died 
on Thursday, September 19, 1876. I saw his appearance on 
Sunday, September 22, and officiated at his funeral on Wednes- 
day, September 25. 

My wife's mother had in her service a coachman named 
P., with one son, James Henry P., who had been brought up 
by friends at a distance and was apprenticed to a trade in 
London. It was a hot and bright afternoon in summer, and, 
as if it were only yesterday, I remember perfectly well walk- 
ing down the bright, broad street in the bright afternoon. 
I had to pass the house of P. I remarked, indeed, that all 
his window blinds were drawn carefully down, as if to screen 
his furniture, of which his wife was inordinately proud, from 
the despoiling blaze of the sun. I smiled inwardly at the 
thought. I then left the road, stepped on to the side pave- 
ment, and looked over the area rails into the front court below. 
A young man dressed in dark clothes and without a hat, and 
apparently about twenty years of age, was standing at the 
door beneath the front steps. On the instant, from his like- 
ness to my friend P., I recognised his son. We both stood 
and looked very hard at each other. Suddenly, however, he 
advanced to that part of the area which was immediately 
below where I was standing, fixed on me a wide, dilated, 
winkless sort of stare, and halted. The desire to speak was 
evidently legible on his face, though nothing audible escaped 
from his lips. But his eyes spoke, every feature in his 
countenance spoke, spoke as it were a silent language in 
which reproach and pain seemed equally intermingled. At 
first I was startled, then I began to feel angry. "Why," I 
said to myself, " does he look at me in that manner ? " At 
last, annoyance prevailing over surprise, I turned away with 
a half -muttered thought : " He certainly knows me and yet 
he has not the civility to salute me." 

On Wednesday it was my turn to officiate at the local 



ii4 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

cemetery. On my asking who was to be buried, I was told 
that it was a young man from my quarter of the town, who 
had died of consumption. I cannot give the reason, but 
immediately I felt startled and ill at ease. It was not that 
I had the least suspicion that anything extraordinary was 
about to happen. I had quite forgotten young P. The 
feeling which I think was uppermost in my mind was annoy- 
ance at the fact that anyone should have died of such a slow 
disease in my parish, but without my knowledge. I asked 
without delay for the Registrar's certificate. My eyes fell 
on the words : " James Henry P., aged 21 years." I could 
scarcely believe my own senses. I lost but little time before 
calling on P. and his wife. I found the latter at home, and 
what she had to say only made me more uncomfortable still. 
During the last three months of his life, which he spent under 
his father's roof, he had often wondered that I did not come 
to see him. His longing for an interview with me had been 
most intense, and every time he saw me pass the house with- 
out going in he had both felt and expressed a keen disappoint- 
ment. In fact, he died terribly in earnest, wishing in vain to 
the last that I would come. The thought pierced me through 
and through. I had not gone to him but he had come to me. 
And yet I would have gone if I had but known. James 
Henry P. died on the Thursday before the Sunday on which 
I had seen him. He died, too, in the front room on a level 
with the area into which its window opened. He had also 
lain there till the Wednesday following awaiting burial. His 
corpse then was lying in that very room on that very Sunday, 
and at that very moment, too, when I had seen his living 
likeness in the area outside. Nobody, I found, had passed 
through the area that day. The door there had been locked 
and unused all the Sunday, and even the milkman, the only 
person who called, had come by the front steps, while P. and 
his wife were the only inmates of the house at the time. 

In reply to the author's inquiry, Mr Lewis says : 

St Paul's Vicarage, Margate, 
September 5, 1906. 

I have no connection with the Psychical Research Society ; 
they asked for permission to republish my story, which I 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 115 

gave them. I only know that my story is a true experience, 
and while stating facts I hazard no explanation. 
Yours faithfully, 

Gerard Lewis. 



Here is what had been wanted, an apparition in day- 
light, and not merely so, but in bright, hot sunshine (cf. 
Acts xxvi. 13). I have personally experienced many 
psychic phenomena in broad daylight and bright lamplight, 
as have the members of my family and my servants. 

The following very remarkable account (note the material- 
ised wound, John xx. 20) is taken from the journal of the 
Rev. John Wesley, and was related by the lady herself : — 

;ome years ago I was addressed in the way of marriage by 
a Mr Richard Mercier, then a volunteer in the Army. When 
the regiment left Charleville he promised to return in two 
months and marry me. He went to England, his father having 
bought him a cornetcy in the horse, and there purchased many 
articles for the wedding, and returning to Ireland let us know 
that he would be at our house in a few days. On this the 
family was busied to prepare for his reception and the ensuing 
marriage when one night, my sister Mary and I being asleep 
in our bed, I was awakened by the sudden opening of the side 
curtains, and starting up, saw Mr Mercier standing by the 
bedside. He was wrapped in what seemed to be a loose sheet, 
and had a napkin, folded like a nightcap, on his head. He 
looked at me very earnestly, and lifting up the napkin showed 
me the left side of his head, bloody, and covered with brains, 
the room meantime being quite light. My terror was excessive, 
which was increased by his stooping over the bed and embrac- 
ing me in his arms. My cries alarmed the whole family, who 
came crowding into the room. Upon their entrance he gently 
withdrew his arms and ascended through the ceiling. When 
I could speak I told them what I had seen. A day or two 
after news came that Cornet Mercier, going into Christ Church, 
Dublin, just after the bells had been ringing, and standing 
under the bells, one of them, which had been turned bottom 
upwards, suddenly turned again, struck the left side of his 
head, and killed him on the spot. 



n6 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

In this remarkable case the apparition was evidently 

ully materialised, as shown by the drawing of the curtains 

and the embracing of the lady, the power evidently being 

largely drawn from the sleeping form of the sister by her 

side (Chapter XX.). 

The spiritual body seems to possess a peculiar radiance 
of its own (Chapter XVII.), and at times emits a light 
and is, apparently, self-luminous. Of this we shall give 
numerous examples in the course of this work. In some 
instances the light of a match has overpowered it and 
caused it to become invisible, only to reappear again when 
the match burnt out. 

One of the latest scientific discoveries may cast some 
light on the reason why apparitions are not seen more 
frequently in the daytime. It has been conclusively 
proved by Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy, 
that his apparatus with a given power will project a 
message one-third as far again over regions of the earth 
which are immersed in the darkness of the night as over 
those illuminated by the sun's rays, the light having some 
peculiar effect either upon the conductivity of the atmos- 
phere or the electrical vibrations themselves. Whatever 
may be the true explanation, the marked retardation of 
the message by daylight is an established fact. 

In like manner it would appear that light retards the 
manifestation of the Spiritual Body. Unable to prevent 
such, it can, and does, add considerably to the difficulty 
attending the same, hence the greater frequency of appari- 
tions, and other psychical manifestations in a subdued 
light.* One is also reminded that darkness, or a light of 
feeble actinic power, is necessary for the development of 
the photographic image impressed upon the sensitive plate, 

* It is to be noted that Christ's first appearance to Mary Magdalene 
was in the early morning, just at dawn (Matt, xxviii. i), and his 
appearance on the way to Emmaus was " towards evening " (Luke 
xxiv. 29). 



APPEARANCES SHORTLY AFTER DEATH 117 

and that many chemical combinations have to be effected 
in the dark, while it is a matter of common experience that 
phenomena, the objective reality of which is beyond 
question, are invisible to normal vision in the presence of 
superior luminosity. Therefore, to the scientist who knows 
these things, the fact that light should, in many cases, 
prove a hindrance to either the manifestation, or the 
visualising, of the Spiritual Body, is one entirely in agree- 
ment with his experience of other phenomena which are 
verified in accordance with the experimental method. 



XI 



OF APPEARANCES OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY LONG AFTER 

DEATH 

And there appeared unto them two men, which were Moses and 
Elias, talking with him. — -Matthew xvii. 3. 

WE now come to another class of appearances of the 
Spiritual Body, which are even more impressive 
than those previously described. Obviously the 
longer the period that has elapsed since the death of the 
Mortal Body, the stronger the evidence for continuity of 
existence. There are many collective cases on record in 
which two or more percipients see the figure. Let us first 
take a typical case with but one {Proceedings S.P.R., 
vol. v., page 416). Here the percipient was an entire 
stranger to the deceased, but identifies the appearance by 
the description of those who knew him in life, and also by 
his photograph. 

It is sent by Mr John E. Husbands, Melbourne House, 
Town Hall Square, Grimsby, who thus writes : 

September 15th, 1886. 
Dear Sir, — The facts are simply these. I was sleeping in 
an hotel in Madeira in January, 1885. It was a bright moon- 
light night. The windows were open and the blinds up. I 
felt someone was in my room. On opening my eyes I saw a 
young fellow about 25, dressed in flannels, standing at the 
side of my bed and pointing with the first finger of the right 
hand to the place I was lying. I lay for some seconds to con- 
vince myself of someone being really there. I then sat up 
and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly that I recog- 
nised them in a photograph which was shown me some days 
afterwards. I asked him what he wanted. He did not 
speak, but his eyes and hand seemed to tell me I was in his 
place. As he did not answer I struck out at him with my 
fist as I sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to 
spring out of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which 
was shut, keeping his eyes upon me all the time. 

118 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 119 

Upon inquiry I found that the young fellow who appeared 
to me died in that room I was occupying. 

If I can tell you anything more I shall be glad to, if it 
interests you. 

John E. Husbands. 

The following letters are from Miss Falkner, of Church 
Terrace, Wisbech, who was resident at the hotel when the 
above incident happened. 

October 8th, 1886. 
The figure that Mr Husbands saw while in Madeira was 
that of a young fellow who died unexpectedly several months 
previously in the room which Mr Husbands was occupying. 
Curiously enough Mr Husbands had never heard of him or of 
his death. He told me the story the morning after he had 
seen the figure, and I recognised the young fellow from the 
description. It impressed me very much, but I did not mention 
it to him or anyone. I loitered about until I heard Mr 
Husbands tell it to my brother. He left Mr Husbands, and 

we said simultaneously, " He has seen Mr D ." No 

more was said for some days, then I abruptly showed him the 
photograph. Mr Husbands said at once, " That is the young 
fellow who appeared to me the other night, but he was dressed 
differently,'' describing a dress he often wore — a cricket or 
tennis suit, fastened at the back with a sailor's knot. I must 
say that Mr Husbands is a practical man, and the very last one 
would expect a spirit to visit. 

K. Falkner. 



This is evidently a case of the Spiritual Body remaining 
for some time associated with the last scenes of earth life, 
of which we shall have more to say hereafter. 

The following is a very striking and remarkable case, 
the apparition being seen nine years after " death." It is 
communicated to the American Society for Psychical 
Research in 1887, and is contained in Proceedings of the 
British Society, vol. vi., page 19. 

Professor Royce and Mr Hodgson vouch for the high 



120 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

character and good position of the informants, and it will 
be seen that besides the percipient himself, his father and 
brother are first-hand witnesses as regards the most im- 
portant point — the effect produced by a certain detail in the 
aspect of the Spiritual Body. 

From Mr F. G , Boston, U.S.A. 

January nth, 1888. 

Sir, — Replying to the recently published request of your 
society for actual occurrences of psychical phenomena, I 
respectfully submit the following to the consideration of 
your distinguished society. 

In 1867, my only sister, a young lady of eighteen years, died 
suddenly of cholera, in St Louis, Mo. My attachment for 
her was very strong, and the blow a severe one to me. A 
year or so after her death the writer became a commercial 
traveller, and it was in 1876, while on one of my western 
trips, that the event occurred. I had drummed the city of 
St Joseph, Mo., and had gone to my room at the Pacific House 
to send in my orders, which were unusually large ones, so that 
I was in a very happy frame of mind indeed. My thoughts, of 
course, were about these orders, knowing how pleased my 
house would be at my success. I had not been thinking of 
my late sister, or in any manner reflecting on the past. The 
hour was high noon, and the Sun was shining cheerfully into 
my room. While busily smoking a cigar and writing out my 
orders I suddenly became conscious that someone was sitting 
on my left, with one arm resting on the table. Quick as a 
flash I turned, and distinctly saw the form of my dead sister, 
and for a brief second or so looked her squarely in the face, 
and so sure was I that it was she that I sprang forward in 
delight, calling her by name, and as I did so the apparition 
vanished. Naturally I was startled and dumbfounded, almost 
doubting my senses, but the cigar in my mouth and the pen 
in my hand, with the ink still moist on my letter, I satisfied 
myself I had not been dreaming and was wide awake. I was 
near enough to touch her, had it been a physical possibility, 
and noted her features, expression, and details of dress, etc. 
She appeared as if alive. Her eyes looked kindly and per- 
fectly natural into mine. Her skin was so life-like that I could 
see the glow or moisture on its surface, and on the whole 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 121 

there was no change in her appearance otherwise than when 
alive. 

Now comes the most remarkable confirmation of my state- 
ment. This visitation, or whatever you may call it, so im- 
pressed me that I took the next train home, and in the presence 
of my parents and others I related what had occurred. My 
father, a man of rare good sense and very practical, was in- 
clined to ridicule me as he saw how earnestly I believed what 
I stated, but he, too, was amazed when later on I told them 
of a bright red line or scratch on the right side of my sister's 
face, which I had distinctly seen. When I mentioned this 
my mother rose trembling to her feet, and nearly fainted away, 
and as soon as she sufficiently recovered her self-possession, 
with tears streaming down her face she exclaimed that I had 
indeed seen my sister, as no living mortal but herself was 
aware of that scratch, which she had accidentally made while 
doing some little act of kindness after my sister's death. She 
said she well remembered how pained she was to think she 
should have unintentionally marred the features of her dead 
daughter, and that unknown to all how she had carefully 
obliterated all traces of the scratch with the aid of powder, 
and that she had never mentioned it to a human being from 
that day to this. In proof neither my father nor any of the 
family had detected it, and positively were unaware of the 
incident, yet I saw the scratch as bright as if just made. So 
strangely impressed was my mother that even after she had 
retired to rest she got up and dressed, came to me and told 
me she knew at l|ast that I had seen my sister. A few weeks 
later my mother died, happy in her belief that she would join 
her favourite daughter in a better world. 

In a further letter, Mr F. G adds : 

There was nothing of a spiritual or ghostly nature in either 
the form or dress of my sister, she appearing perfectly natural 
and dressed in clothing she usually wore in life, and was 
familiar to me. From her position at the table I could only 
see her from the waist up, and her appearance and everything 
she wore is indelibly photographed in my mind. I had even 
time to notice the collar and little breastpin she wore, as well 
as the comb in her hair, after the style then worn by young 
ladies. The dress had no particular association for me or my 



122 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

mother, no more than others she was in the habit of wearing, 
but to-day, while I have forgotten all her other dresses, pins, 
and combs, I could go to her trunk (which we have just as she 
left it) and pick out the very dress and ornaments she wore 
when she appeared to me, so well do I remember it. 

Mr F. G again writes to Mr Hodgson, 23rd January 



As per your request I enclose a letter from my father, which 
is endorsed by my brother, confirming the statement I made 
to them of the apparition I had seen. 

You will note that my father refers to the scratch, and it 
was this that puzzled all, even himself, and which we have 
never been able to account for, further than in some mysteri- 
ous way I had actually seen my sister nine years after death, 
and had particularly noticed and described to my parents 
and family this bright red scratch, and which beyond all doubt 
in our minds was unknown to a soul save my mother, who 
had accidentally caused it. When I made my statement, all, 
of course, listened and were interested, but the matter would 
probably have passed with comments that it was a freak of 
memory had I not asked about the scratch, and the instant I 
mentioned it my mother was aroused as if she had received 
an electric shock, as she had kept it secret from all, and she 
alone was able to explain it. My mother was a sincere Christian 
lady, a directress in many charitable institutions, and was 
highly educated. No lady at the time stood higher in the 
city of St Louis, and she was besides a woman of rare good 
sense. 

I mention these points to give you an insight into the char- 
acter and standing of those whose testimony in such a case 
is necessary. 

(Signed) F. G— . 

From Mr H. G : 



Ills., January 20, 1888. 

Dear F , — Yours of 16th inst. is received. In reply 

to your questions relating to your having seen our Annie, 
while at St Joseph, Mo., I will state that I well remember the 
statement you made to the family on your return home. 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 123 

I remember your stating how she had looked in ordinary home 
dress, and particularly about the scratch on her face, which, 
you could not account for, but which was fully explained by 
your mother. The scratch * was made while adjusting some- 
thing about her head while in the casket and covered with 
powder. All who heard you relate the phenomenal sight 
thought it was true. You well know how sceptical I am about 
these things. 
Affectionately, 

H. G. (Father). 

I was present at the time, and endorse the above. 

(Signed) K. G. (Brother). 

Mr Myers justly remarks on this case : The death of 
the mother a few weeks after is noteworthy. If the appari- 
tion had been delayed there would have been no one left 
on earth who could have confirmed the existence of the 
scratch and so perfectly established the identity. We 
may therefore class it as a case where the departed daughter 
was aware of the approaching decease of her mother, and 
it seems that recognition was intelligently aimed at. 

One of the most interesting cases on record is related by 
General Barter, C.B. (still another soldier percipient), of 
Carytown, Whitegate, co. Cork (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v., 
page 469) : 

April 28, 1888. 
In the year 1854, I, then a subaltern in the 75th Regiment, 
was doing duty at the Hill Station of Murree, in the Punjaub. 
The sanatorium had not been long in being, and our men 
were in temporary huts perched on the crest of a hill some 
7000 feet above sea level, and the officers were living in tents 
pitched in sheltered spots on the hillside, except three or four 



*This scratch was assumed for identification purposes, just as the 
wounds of nails and spear were assumed by Christ, not that either 
wounds or scratch existed on the spiritual body. Exactly the same 
applies to other mutilations or imperfections which are often observed 
(John xx. 20). Vide also page 115. 



124 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

who had been fortunate enough to rent houses such as they 
were, which had been built by their predecessors. I rented a 

house built a year or two before by a Lieutenant B , who 

had died in the previous year at Peshawur. This house was 
built on a spur jutting out from the side of the mountain 
and about 200 or 300 yards under the Mall, as the only road 
then made, which ran round the hill, was called. A bridle- 
path led to my house from the Mall, and this was scooped 
out of the hillside, the earth, etc., being shovelled over the 
side next to my house. The bridle-path ended at a precipice, 
but a few yards from where a footpath led to my hut. 

Shortly after I had occupied my hut an officer named 

D came down one evening with his wife, and stayed with 

us until near 11 p.m. It was a lovely night, with the Moon 
at the full, and I walked with them to where my path joined 
the bridle-road, and remained standing there while they toiled 
up the zigzag footpath to the Mall, from which they called 
down to me good-night. I had two dogs with me, and re- 
mained on the spot while I finished the cigar which I was 
smoking, the dogs meanwhile hunting about in the brushwood 
jungle which covered the hill. I had just turned to go home 
when I heard the ring of a horse's hoof as the shoes struck the 
stones coming along the bridle-path before it takes the sharp 
bend (marked in a plan which General Barter encloses), and 
presently I could see a tall hat appear, evidently worn by the 
rider of the animal. The steps grew nearer, and in a few 
seconds round the corner appeared a man mounted on a pony, 
with two syces or grooms. At this time the two dogs came 
and crouching at my side gave low frightened whimpers. The 
Moon was at the full, a tropical Moon, so bright you could see 
to read a newspaper by its light, and I saw the party before 
me advance as plainly as if it were noon-day. They were 
above me some eight or ten feet on the bridle-road, the earth 
thrown down from which sloped to within a pace or two of 
my feet. On the party came until almost in front of me, and 
now I had better describe them. The rider was in full dinner 
dress, with white waistcoat, and wearing a tall hat, and he 
sat a powerful hill pony (dark brown, with black mane and 
tail) in a listless sort of way, the reins hanging loosely from 
both hands. A syce led the pony on each side, but their faces 
I could not see, the one next to me having his back to me, and 
the one farthest off being hidden by the pony's head ; each 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 125 

held the bridle close up by the bit, the man next me with his 
right, the other with his left hand, and the other hands were 
on the thighs of the rider, as if to steady him in the seat. As 
they approached I, knowing that they could not get to any 
place other than my own, called out in Hindustanee, " Quon 
hai ? " (" Who is it ? ") There was no answer, and on they 
came right in front of me, when I said in English: " Hello! 
What do you want here ? " Instantly the group came to a 
halt, the rider gathering the bridle reins up with both hands, 
turned his face, which had hitherto been looking away from 
me, towards me, and looked down on me. The group was 
still as in a tableau, with the Moon shining full upon it, and I 

at once recognised the rider as Lieutenant B , whom I 

had formerly known. The face, however, was different from 
what it used to be, in place of being clean shaved, as when I 
knew it, it was now surrounded by a fringe, and it was the 
face of a dead man ; the ghastly waxen pallor of it brought 
out more distinctly in the moonlight by the fringe of dark hair 
by which it was encircled, the body, too, was far stouter than 
when I had known it in life. I marked all this in a moment, 
and then resolved to lay hold of the thing whatever it was. 
I dashed up the bank, and the earth which had been thrown 
down the side giving under my feet, I fell forward upon the bank 
on my hands ; recovering myself instantly, I gained the road 
and stood in the exact spot where the group had been, but 
which was now vacant. There wasn't a trace of anything ; 
it was impossible for them to go on ; the road stopped at a 
precipice about twenty yards beyond, and it was impossible 
to turn and go back in a second. All this flashed through my 
mind, and I then ran down the road for about 100 yards 
along which they had come, until I had to stop for want of 
breath, but there was no trace of anything and not a sound 
to be heard. I then returned home, where I found my dogs 
who, on all other occasions my most faithful companions, had 
not come with me along the road. 

Next morning I went to Deane, who belonged to the same 

regiment as B , and gradually induced him to talk of him. 

I said, " How very stout he has become lately, and what 
possessed him to allow his beard to grow into that horrid 
fringe ? " Deane replied : " Yes, he became stout before his 
death, and while on the sick list he allowed the fringe to grow 
in spite of all we could say to him, and I believe he was buried 



126 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

in it. But," said Deane, " how do you know anything about 

all this ? You haven't seen B for two or three years, 

and the pony you never saw. He bought that at Peshawur, 
and killed him one day riding in his reckless fashion down the 
hill to Trete." I then told him what I had seen the night 
before. 

R. Barter, Major -General, C.B. 

In conversation, on 12th October 1888, General Barter 
gave some further details as follows : — 

October 13, 1888. 

When I saw the apparition I had been about a week in 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin." I heard that B had built that 

house, but that fact did not interest me. I never talked about 

B . He was never in my thoughts. I am positive that 

I had not heard about his change of appearance before death. 

When I saw the rider and syces approaching me down the 
hill I noticed that as the path was narrow as well as rough, 
sometimes one syce and sometimes the other would have to 
leave the path and walk on the hillside above or below it, still 
holding the rider. When I rushed up the hill to accost the 
rider he was only some four yards from me, but the intervening 
space was a bank of soft earth (thrown from the path when it 
was made), so that I stumbled in it when almost close to the 
horse. 

We remained about six weeks in " Uncle Tom's Cabin " 
(i.e., as afterwards explained in June and July). During 
that time my wife and I repeatedly heard the sound of a 
man riding rapidly down the path to the house. There was 

never anyone realty there, and in fact, except B , I doubt 

whether anyone has ever ridden down that path. Once when 
the galloping sound was very distinct, I rushed to the door of 
the house. There I found my Hindoo bearer standing with a 
tattie in his hand. I asked him what he was there for. He 
said that there came a sound of riding down the hill and 
passed him like a typhoon and went round the corner of the 
house, and he was determined to waylay it whatever it was. 

Mr Adam Steuart, formerly lieutenant 87th Royal Irish 
Fusiliers, writes to General Barter, September, 1888, as 
follows : — 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 127 

I well remember your coming into my hut at Murree when 
I was still in bed one morning and telling me you had seen 
the ghost of J. B the night before. 

Asked whether he remembered anything as to Lieutenant 
B 's aspect or hair, he replied as follows : — 

16 Crookham Road, Fulham, S.W. 
September 24, 1888. 

Dear Sir, — 1 beg to acknowledge receipt of your favour of 
the 21st inst., and in reply have to state that when General 
(then Lieutenant) Barter told me of what he had seen he 
said to me in almost these words : "I would have said it 

was J. B but that he had what is commonly called a frill 

(viz. the hair of the beard growing under the chin)." I had 

not myself seen Mr B — for some time before his death, but 

I believe he did get stout, and for some time previously he 
had, from some freak or other, grown the hair under his chin. 

I remain, dear sir, yours faithfully, 

Adam Steuart. 

Finally, Mrs Barter confirms as follows :— 

October 18, 1888. 
During the summer of 1854 my husband, then a lieutenant 
in the 75th Regiment, was doing duty at the Murree Depot 
in the Punjaub, and one night, when Mr and Mrs Deane, 
22nd Regiment, had been spending the evening with us, he 
accompanied them part of the way home. On his return, 
seeing him very pale and with a troubled expression, I 
questioned him, and he told me that when the Deanes had 
left him as he was about returning home, he was surprised to 
hear the sound of a horse's hoofs on the little road leading to 
our house, " Uncle Tom's Cabin," as it was called, and that 
when the horse came in view he saw that he was ridden by a 
European, who was held on by two syces, that they came 
close to him on the roadway under which he was standing, 
and on his challenging them, the rider stopped the pony and 
looked down on him, and he by the light of the full moon at 

once recognised him as Lieutenant B , 22nd Regiment, 

who had died some time before in Peshawur. My husband 



128 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

said that he had made a dash up the bank to get at the party, 
but the earth thrown down from the road gave under his feet 
and he slipped forward on his hands, and when he recovered 
himself the whole thing had disappeared. 

We lived at " Uncle Tom's Cabin " for about six weeks 
after, and several times heard a horse gallop down the path 
and round our house at breakneck speed during the night, 
the panting of the horse being quite audible, and once my 
husband hearing it approaching, threw open the door as it 
passed, and ran into the verandah, where stood our old bearer 
named Bolah, armed with a tattie, who said he often heard 
it go past like a whirlwind. I may add that our house, " Uncle 

Tom's Cabin," had been built by Lieutenant B . 

(Signed) M. D. Barter. 

With reference to this experience the theory has been 
advanced that these appearances were the result of a latent 
image in the General's mind. Now there are two theories 
of latency put forth by objectors. The first is that of 
latent telepathy. Telepathy is a communication between 
one living personality and another living personality, by 
spiritual or mental processes, and is a well-established 
scientific fact. Many have sought to explain the appear- 
ance of the Spiritual Body after death by this theory of 
latent telepathy — i.e. that the appearance is the result of 
the last mental effort on the part of the dying person, which 
effort remains latent for a time and then suddenly takes 
effect upon the percipient or percipients. One can only 
reply that there is not a scrap of evidence for this latency 
and action apart from the living personality, the present 
evidence supporting the fact already known, that telepathy 
is a communication between one living personality and 
another living personality — living either in the flesh or 
living in the spirit (discarnate). 

Experiences such as this of the General, together with 
those given on page 10S, explode the latency theories com- 
pletely. The accompanying figures, apparently visible to 
the dogs in two instances, and the opening of the door in 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 129 

the other, are absolutely inexplicable by the theory of 
latent telepathy, while the case of Mrs Meneer, recorded 
elsewhere, is utterly destructive of this theory though 
perfectly in accordance with the idea that the communica- 
tion was between the surviving personality of the deceased 
alive in the Spiritual Body, and the living personality of 
the percipient. As far, therefore, as telepathy throws any 
light upon the subject, its evidence is for the survival of 
human personality after " death " and not against it. 

The second latency theory, that of the latent image, is 
the one destroyed by such experiences as this of General 
Barter, as Mr Myers truly remarks, and is briefly that the 
figures have only their existence in the percipient's own 
mind, and are the result of a past recollection lying 
dormant, or latent, and suddenly visualised. Now General 

Barter sees Lieutenant B with a fringe of beard 

which he had never seen him wear in life, but which, as 
a fact, had grown in the interim, during his illness in 
hospital, proving conclusively that the figure did not 
originate in the General's mind, but was something distinct 
and apart. 

There is also the consideration that the dogs * accom- 

* That animals have a keen perception of the Spiritual Body, and 
evince a most lively apprehension on its approach, is a fact which 
has been observed from time immemorial, at any rate the pheno- 
menon was noted as early as the days of Moses (Numbers xxii. 28). 

Very many modern instances have been recorded. Here are a 
few (see also page 108) where the apparition is perceived by both 
man and the lower animals at one and the same time. 

A case in point is communicated, through a solicitor, to the 
American S.P.R. 

" Mr R. Pearsall Smith said that among the illustrations of the 
fact that animals have a perception of these extraordinary appari- 
tions after death, might be mentioned one occurring to a neighbour 
of his own, a prominent barrister at Philadelphia. He had parted 
under painful circumstances of controversy with a friend who had 
later gone to Italy for his health. Afterwards, while camping out 
in the wilds of the Adirondacks, one day his horse became excited 
and refused to advance when urged. While engaged in a contest 



130 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

panying the General gave indications that they saw the 
same figures. All these considerations form absolute 
proof that the figures had no origin in the General's mind, 
and refute the latent image theory completely. 

The following account is remarkable for the persistence 
and long continuance of the appearance, for the know- 

with the horse, the barrister saw before him the apparition of his 
friend, with blood pouring from his mouth, and in an interval of 
the effusion he heard him say, " I have nothing against you." 
Soon afterwards he heard that his friend had at that time died 
during a discharge of blood from the lungs." 

I am able to add an experience confirming this perception on the 
part of animals, occurring in my own vicarage. 

On Thursday, 30th March 1915, at 10.30 p.m., rny wife came to my 
study in great excitement saying that a few minutes before, when 
upstairs in our bedroom, she was arranging the pillows at the head 
of the bed. Glancing towards the bed's foot she saw a big black 
dog like a mastiff standing near the door. (We have never kept a 
dog.) It was perfectly distinct. As she gazed at it our cat, which 
had followed her upstairs, entered the room. It saw the dog, and 
instantly sprang into the air, spitting and arching its back, and 
the next instant leaped over the top of the wash-hand stand, set 
across the corner of the room, and took refuge in the corner behind 
it. The dog then faded away, and my wife, not sure whether the 
cat were not an apparition likewise, looked behind the wash-hand 
stand and found the cat in a great state of terror with its tail thick 
and its hair all on end, still spitting and manifesting the most lively 
apprehension. 

Accounts of other apparitions of animals seen in my house by 
several witnesses at the same time will be found in a later chapter. 

The next account, that of Mr Mamtchich, contains evidence that 
the dog also perceived the figure at the same moment that he did : 

" In my room my setter dog was sleeping. As soon as I saw 
Palladia the dog erected his hair and yelping leaped upon my bed, 
and pressing close to me looked fixedly in the direction where I 
saw Palladia." 

In Proceedings S.P.R., vol. ii., page 150, a church dignitary also 
gives interesting testimony as to the fear shown by his dogs, while 
a similar account will be found in vol. iii., page 116, also vol. v., 
page 308. The manner in which the mastiff dog always perceived 
the presence of " Old Jeffry " during the experiences of the Wesley 
family at Epworth, are set forth both in the diary of the Rev. 
Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth, and the account given by his 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 131 

ledge shown of terrestrial affairs, the " Guardian Angel " 
attitude of the apparition, and the fact that the appear- 
ance took place at stations widely apart, and not in the 
house where the lady died. The account is published 
in Proceedings of S.P.R., vol. x., pages 387-391. It is 
written in French, and sent by the percipient, Mr Mamtchich. 
I here translate the several letters : 

Sx Petersburg, 
April 2.9th, 1 891. 
As I am about to treat of the apparition of Palladia I ought 
in the first place to say a few words about her personally. 

son, the Rev. John Wesley (vide Chapter XXIV.). Miss Morton 
also notes this perception on the part of the lower animals. 

" Twice I remember seeing this dog suddenly run up to the mat 
at the foot of the stairs in the hall wagging his tail and moving his 
back in the way dogs do when expecting to be caressed. It jumped 
up fawning as it would do if a person had been standing there, then 
slunk away trembling. We were all strongly under the impression that 
it saw the figure, its action was peculiar and was much more striking 
to an onlooker than it could possibly appear from a description." 

The conclusion is as clear as evidence can make it, and it is 
irresistible. The lower animals have as plain a perception of the 
appearance of the Spiritual Body as we have, a perception which 
could not be shared if the figure had not an existence external to 
the visual organs of the human percipients. 

Let us here consider a certain anti-spiritual hypothesis whereby 
it is sought to explain away collective appearances — those which are 
seen by more than one person at the same time — by a theory of 
collective hallucination — i.e. that one of the percipients imagines the 
figure, recalling some former mental impression, and then this vision 
is instantly and unconsciously communicated to the others by a kind 
of mental infection, and thus the others present imagine they see it 
also. This idea, we would point out, makes a tenfold greater de- 
mand upon one's belief than the simple and scriptural doctrine of 
the survival of the Spiritual Body which it seeks to destroy. But 
surely it meets its debacle and suffers a complete reductio ad ab- 
surdum — even if the latent image idea were not completely discredited 
as previously shown — when applied to these cases of perception 
by men and animals at the same time, for then we should be asked to 
believe that a man can instantly cause the mental picture before 
his vision to be visualised also by the dog or horse, as the case 
may be. 



i 3 2 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

She was the daughter of a rich Russian landowner, who died 
before she was born. Her mother, in her despair, vowed her 
future child to a convent. In this way she got her name, 
which was one in use among the nuns. Two years afterwards 
her mother died, and the little orphan was brought up in a 
convent in Moscow by her aunt, who was the Lady Superior, 
until she was fourteen years of age. 

In 1870, while I was still a student at the University at 
Moscow, I made the acquaintance of Palladia's brother, who 
was a student like myself, and we often consulted as to how 
we should make the little nun return to the world in spite 
of herself, but this plan was not realised until 1872. I had 
come to Moscow in the spring to see the exhibition, and there 
I happened to meet Palladia's brother, I learned that he 
was about to depart for the Crimea on account of his health, 
and I aided him in this to the best of my ability. It was then 
that I saw Palladia for the first time. She was about fourteen 
years of age ; though rather tall she was very thin, and already 
in a decline. At the request of her brother I accompanied 

Palladia and her sister, Madame P. S , to the Crimea, 

where they remained for the winter, and I, two weeks after, 
returned to Kieff. 

In the spring of 1873 by chance I met Palladia and her 
sister in Odessa, where they had come to consult the doctors, 
although Palladia looked fairly well. On the 27th of August, 
while I was reading to the two ladies, Palladia suddenly ex- 
pired of an aneurism, being then fifteen years of age. 

In October, 1876, I found myself again at Kieff, where I 
was about to be installed in new quarters (Proresnaya Street) 
with my colleague, M. Potolof, in the service of the Minister 
of Justice. I had a small piano brought in. It was placed 
in the room, and I began to play, it being about eight o'clock 
in the evening. The drawing-room in which I was playing 
was lighted by a lamp hung from the wall ; next to it was my 
study, also lighted by a lamp. I well remember that I was in 
high spirits : my colleague, M. Potolof, was busy at the time 
at the other end of the apartment. All the doors were open 
[a plan with this account shows four rooms all opening into 
one another ; M. Potolof's study, the ante-room, M. M. 
Mamtchich's study, and the drawing-room, the three doors 
being all in one straight line], and from where he sat he could 
easily see the room where I played, and also my study. Casting 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 133 

a glance towards the door of my study I saw, all at once, the 
figure of Palladia. She stood in the middle of the doorway, 
her body turned rather to one side, but the face towards mej 
She looked at me calmly. She had on the same dark-coloured 
dress which she wore when she died in my presence. Her 
right hand hung down by her side. I distinctly saw her 
shoulders and the upper part of her body, but do not remember 
that I saw her skirt, and whether I saw the feet or not I am 
not sure, perhaps because all the time I was gazing on her 
face. When I saw her I completely forgot that she was dead, 
so distinctly did I see her. The figure was perfectly illumin- 
ated, and I had a very good view. How long Palladia re- 
mained before me I am not able to say, but I remember that 
she moved to the right and disappeared behind the door of 
my study. I rushed towards her, but stopped at the door, 
for then, and then only, I remembered that she was dead, and 
I was afraid of seeing her again. At this moment my colleague 
came to me and asked me what was the matter. I related 
what had happened, then we entered the study, where we 
found no one. My colleague, when he heard the sudden in- 
terruption of my playing, had raised his head, and as far as I 
remember, said that he had also seen someone pass before the 
door of the study, but seeing my agitation, to quieten me he 
said that it must have been my servant Nikita, who had come 
to see to the lamp. We went immediately round to her room, 
she was not there ; she was below in the kitchen, where she 
was making the tea. This is how I saw Palladia for the first 
time, three years after her death. 

From the first apparition of Palladia in October, 1876, up 
to the present time I have seen her often. I sometimes see 
her three times a week, or on the other hand twice a day, or 
sometimes a month may pass without seeing her at all. To 
sum up, these are the chief characteristics of these appari- 
tions : 

1. Palladia invariably takes me by surprise when she 
appears, just at the moment when I am thinking of her least. 

2. When I myself wish to see her, when I think of her or 
wish it most, she does not appear. 

3. With a few rare exceptions her apparition has no relation 
with the course of my life, either as an omen or warning of 
any unusual happening. 

4. I have never seen her in a dream. 



134 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

5. I see her equally well whether alone or in the presence 
of many others. 

6. She always appears to me with the same serious expres- 
sion or with a faint smile. She has only spoken to me on 
two occasions, of which I shall speak later. 

7. I always see her in the dark dress she wore when she 
died before my eyes. I distinctly see her head, shoulders, 
and arms, but I do not see her feet, or rather I have not the 
time to examine them. 

8. Every time I see Palladia unexpectedly I lose speech. 
I feel a cold shiver down the back, I become pale, and utter 
a low cry, so I am told by those who happen to have seen me 
at this moment, and I am unable to breathe. 

9. The apparition of Palladia lasts for two or three minutes, 
then gradually becomes effaced and dissolves into thin air. 

For the present I will describe three appearances of Palladia 
which I remember well. 

1. In 1879, at the end of November, at Kieff, I was seated 
at my desk writing out an indictment ; it was about a quarter 
past eight in the evening, the watch being before me on the 
table. I was in a hurry to finish my task, for at nine o'clock 
I had to be at an evening party. All at once, straight in 
front of me, seated upon an arm-chair, I saw Palladia. She 
was leaning with her right elbow on the table and her head 
upon her hand. Having recovered from the shock I looked 
at the watch, and followed with my eyes the movement of 
the seconds hand, then I raised them to Palladia's. I saw 
that she had not changed her position ; her elbow still rested 
plainly upon the table, her eyes regarded me with an ex- 
pression of joy and serenity, and for the first time I decided 
to speak to her. " How do you feel now ? " I asked. Her 
face remained impassible, and as far as I can remember her 
lips did not move, but I heard her voice distinctly pronounce 
the word " restfulness " (quietude). "I understand," I re- 
plied, and really at that moment I understood all the meaning 
which she had placed in that word. Again, to be sure I was 
not dreaming, I watched the seconds hand, and saw distinctly 
its progression. Having again directed my glance at Palladia 
I perceived that already she was beginning to fade away and 
disappear. If I had made a note of my impression of the 
meaning of ' ' quietude ' ' I should have been able to retain its 
full significance, but scarcely had I risen from the table to go 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 135 

up to the house of my friend Apouktine, than I was not able 
to remember anything but what I now write. 

2. In 1885 I was staying at the house of my parents at 
their country house in the department of Poltava. A lady 
of our acquaintance had come to stay with us with her two 
young daughters. Some time after their arrival, having 
arisen at daybreak, I saw Palladia. I was sleeping in a 
separate wing of the building, where I was all alone. She 
stood before me at a distance of about five paces and re- 
garded me with a joyous smile. Having come near to me 
she said : "I have been, I have seen," and then, smiling all 
the time, disappeared. What she wished to express by these 
words I was not able to imagine. In my room my setter dog 
was sleeping. As soon as I saw Palladia, the dog erected his 
hair, and yelping, leaped upon my bed, and pressing close to 
me looked fixedly in the direction where I saw Palladia. The 
dog did not bark, although ordinarily he would not allow 
anyone to enter the room without barking or growling. All 
the time that my dog saw Palladia he pressed close to me as 
though seeking refuge. 

When Palladia disappeared and I came into the house I 
did not speak to anyone about the incident. The same 
evening, however, the elder daughter of the lady who was 
at our house told me that a strange thing had happened to 
her that morning. 

She said : ' Having got up very early I had a feeling as 
if someone was standing at the head of my bed, and I dis- 
tinctly heard a voice saying to me, ' Do not be afraid of me, 
I am good and loving.' I turned my head, but I saw nothing, 
and my mother and sister were sleeping peacefully. This has 
greatly astonished me, for nothing like it has ever happened 
to me before." Upon which I answered that many inex- 
plicable things happened to people, but I did not tell her 
what I had seen that morning. 

Only after the lapse of a year, when I was engaged to her, 
did I tell her of the apparition and the words of Palladia the 
same day. Had not Palladia come for the purpose of seeing 
her also ? ( Vide page 63 . ) I ought to add that I then saw this 
young lady for the first time, and / had no idea that I should 
marry her. 

3. In October, 1890, I was with my wife and my son, aged 
two years, at the house of my old friends the Strigewskies, 



136 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

at their country house in the department of Woroneje. One 
day, towards seven in the evening, returning from hunting, 
I passed into the wing where we had our rooms to change my 
dress. I was seated in my room, lighted with a big lamp, 
the door opened, and my little boy, Oleg, ran in. He 
was standing by the arm-chair when suddenly Palladia 
appeared before me. Glancing at him I saw that he fixedly 
regarded Palladia, then turning to me and pointing to 
Palladia with his finger he said : " Auntie." I took him on 
my knee and glanced at Palladia, but she was no longer 
visible. The countenance of Oleg remained calm and joyous. 
He only began to speak and explain why he had called 
Palladia auntie. 

Mrs Mamtchich writes in confirmation : 

$th May 1891. 
I remember very well on the 10th of July, 1885, when we 
were on a visit at the house of the parents of Mr E. Mamtchich 
that I awoke at daybreak, for it had been agreed upon by my 
sister and myself that we would go out for a morning walk. 
Having raised myself upon the bed I saw that my sister and 
mother were sleeping. At this moment I had a feeling that 
someone was standing at the head of my bed. Having turned 
half way round, for I was afraid to look fully, I saw no one. 
When I had lain down again I heard immediately beside my 
head a woman's voice saying to me sweetly but distinctly : 
" Do not be afraid of me, I am good and loving." It is strange 
that those words did not frighten me in the least. But to 
resume. I did not say anything to my mother or my sister, 
for they did not like such subjects, and did not believe in them, 
but the same evening, when the conversation turned upon 
things spiritual, I related to Mr Mamtchich what had happened 
to me in the morning. 

Sophie Mamtchich. 

There is also a confirmatory letter from Mr Potolof. 

This case is remarkable for the time over which the 
appearances are extended and for the fact that they are 
not confined to one place, and so have nothing in common 
with that frequenting for a time of one especial scene of 
the earthly life, which is often met with, but rather suggest 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 137 

interest in, attachment to, and guardianship of, one beloved. 
This is especially noticeable in the case of the almost 
simultaneous appearances to Mr Mamtchich and the lady 
who afterwards became his wife, while all the appearances 
are of an encouraging and consolatory type ; in this respect 
similar to others which we have yet to describe. 

This case also particularly illustrates the interest in 
terrene affairs still maintained in the spirit state (vide 
Chap. XII.) . It is interesting to note that the whole figure 
of Palladia is not seen, but only the upper portion necessary 
for recognition. This is frequently the case. 

As to the conduct of the dog, this is characteristic, and 
strongly evidential, as has been previously shown. 

The belief that the spirits of departed relatives and 
friends not only exercise a guardian care,* but are near to 
and waiting for those who are dying and about to be re- 
leased from what our Prayer Book describes as " the burden 
of the flesh," is a beautiful one and as old as mankind, 
and there is scarcely a household that cannot bear some 
testimony to it. The sceptic may say that these are but 
the fantasies of dying persons. Well, he is welcome to his 

* The belief in guardian angels is at least as old as Christianity, 
and probably older, for the Psalmist says : " He shall give his 
angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways," and again : 
" The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him 
and delivereth them," and in this connection the account contained 
in 2 Kings vi. 17 is interesting: "Behold the mountain was full 
of horses and chariots round about Elisha." Also Dan. iii. 25. 

Again Christ seems to sanction and confirm it when he says 
(Matt, xviii. 10) : " Take heed that ye despise not one of these little 
ones ; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always 
behold the face of my father." 

[Let no one despise them, for they have unseen friends in the 
court of heaven who have access to the presence of the King himself.] 

That this belief prevailed in very early Christian times is certain, 
for The Pastor (or Shepherd) of Hermes (a.d. 130-150), chap, ii., 
mentions guardian angels, while in The Recognitions of Clement the 
same belief is indicated. Both these works are of ante-Nicene 
date, and although regarded as more or less apocryphal, they serve 
to show the trend of thought on this subject in the second century. 



138 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

view of things. The universal instinct of mankind makes 
for something higher and nobler, and the evidence points 
to it conclusively. 

Here is an instance which illustrates the more human and 
natural view. It occurred in the cavalry barracks at 
Aldershot in the autumn of 1876, and curiously enough 
the percipients are all either military or medical men who 
cannot well be accused of nerves. The account is as 
follows : — 

About fourteen of the 5th Lancers were seated in their 
messroom in the East Cavalry Barracks, Aldershot, one day 
in the autumn of 1876. They had just finished dinner a little 
after half -past eight when a lady, dressed in a full evening 
dress of white silk with a long bridal veil, walked past the 
window outside, the curtains being but partly drawn. Her 
movement was rather rapid, but two officers at least who sat 
at the table saw her. 

She moved in the direction of Mr Norton, who rang the 
bell and asked the mess sergeant if anyone had been in the 
conservatory at the back of the room, as it was thought that 
the appearance might be due to reflection. The sergeant 
denied that any woman had entered the room so it was put 
down as an apparition, for there was no support outside the 
window, which was forty feet above the ground. 

The features were discussed. She was described by those 
who saw her as handsome, very dark, and with a very sad 
countenance. One officer present on hearing this said : 

"Why, it is old 's wife ; she died in India." The officer 

named was the regimental veterinary, who was supposed at 
that time to be home on leave. It turned out, however, that 
the veterinary had returned that very afternoon unknown 
to any of his brother officers, although some weeks of his leave 
remained. He rang for his servant and complained of fatigue. 
This was the day of the apparition seen in the mess. A few 
days later, about half-past eight in the evening, his servant 
went up to his room and found him dying in bed. Dr Atkinson 
attended him, and the very first thing he saw on entering the 
room was a cabinet photograph of the lady, in the same dress, 
which they had seen a few days before. Captain Norton, 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 139 

Lieutenant Fred Russell, and Surgeon Atkinson all distinctly 
saw the apparition, which is exceptionally well attested. 

Here, as in the case narrated on page 120, there is a 
carefully arranged plan to secure recognition* The 

* The old question, Cut bono ? (What is the good of it ?) is answered 
by this phase of Spiritual Manifestation, among others. These 
things are (1) For our consolation and encouragement; showing us 
that those loved ones who have departed this life have neither ceased 
to live nor lost their interest in us. (2) For our instruction and ad- 
monition ; testifying plainly that there is a future life in store for us 
after the death of the mortal body, and bidding us live in the light 
of this knowledge. 

The same question may be asked concerning the return of the 
Christ. What good did it do ? 

It proved the " resurrection of the dead and the life of the world 
to come." Each generation demands this evidence for itself and 
will be satisfied in no other way. 

Others among the worldly-wise ask the question Cui bono ? in 
another form . They say : "Of what material benefit is it to man- 
kind ? Why do not modern spirit communications reveal some 
great discovery in physical science ? Let this be done and we will 
believe in them." 

Apart from the fact that there are other benefits accruing to the 
race besides material ones, the reply to this is that in all probability 
it has been done, and is constantly being done. " Every good and 
perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights " 
(James i. 17). Inspiration is not confined to religious matters but 
holds good in the sciences and arts to an extent scarcely realised at 
the present time. Is it likely that the leaders in science and art will 
suddenly lose all interest in their life work and that which was their 
chief interest when they pass from this world to the next ? Is it 
not more reasonable to suppose that their interest will still be main- 
tained, and as the messengers and agents of God they will carry on 
the work to which their lives were devoted ? Apart from this, 
however, this demand for some dramatic revelation of a great 
scientific fact is no argument against the reality or utility of modern 
psychic communications, any more than it is any argument against 
those of Old and New Testament times. As well might one say (as 
Dr Funk pertinently remarks) that the failure of the angel that 
appeared to St Paul on the storm-driven ship to reveal the construc- 
tion of the mariner's compass in their dire extremity (no moon or 
stars appearing) was proof of the unreality or uselessness of the 
psychic messages of Paul's time. Inspiration, while a continuous 
process, is conducted in such a manner as not to enfeeble the race 
by doing away with the necessity for human research and endeavour. 



140 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

apparition assumes the bridal dress afterwards recognised 
without which the connection between the apparition of 
the wife in the Spiritual Body and the death of the husband 
could not have been so definitely established, as it was 
beyond all doubt, by means of the photograph, in this case 
the wife had been dead for years. 

I now come to two personal experiences, one of which 
happened in my own house and for the absolute accuracy 
of which I am able to vouch. Many of the instances yet to 
be brought forward come under the heading of this chapter, 
but as they are accompanied by other circumstances which 
give them a special interest, they are reserved for considera- 
tion elsewhere. 

Yours is indeed a house of mystery. Personally I fully 
believe that Lord Lytton followed his photo down to your 
house. 

The above passage occurs in a letter written to me by Vice- 
Admiral Usborne Moore under date of 16th August 19 15, 
expressing his conviction that the great novelist had paid 
us a visit here. I am of the same opinion, and I venture 
to think that the majority of the readers of this account 
will be similarly convinced by the time they have finished 
its perusal. In May and June, 1915, I had been correspond- 
ing with Admiral Moore with reference to psychic photog- 
raphy, comparing photos and experiences. At the end of 
June Admiral Moore sent me a psychic photo, taken by 
Boursnell, showing a figure of Lord Lytton standing close 
to the Admiral, who is seated in a chair. This photo bears 
a remarkable resemblance in features — though the pose is 
different — to an engraving of Lord Lytton published 
originally by Macmillan ; and the psychic image has been 
recognised as a likeness of the great novelist by a clergyman 
who knew him personally, and who is also known to the 
Admiral. This photograph was sent to me at the end of 
June. 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 141 

On its arrival I locked it up in my study, the photo being 
in my desk, and occupying a position about seven feet from 
the door in a direct line with the entrance. 

Neither my wife nor my children knew of the arrival of 
this photo, and did not know that it was in the house. I had 
kept the matter entirely private. 

A few days after this event, on Sunday, 4th July, about 
2.15 p.m., I was on the point of entering my study, the door 
of which I always keep locked, and was approaching the door 
with the key in my hand in act to open it, when my wife 
came up to me in the hall as if desirous to speak with me. 
When about a yard away from me, and before she uttered a 
word, she suddenly drew back, placed her hand before her 
face and uttered a low cry. I stood still and did not unlock 
the door, but waited a few seconds in silence until she re- 
covered her composure. I then asked what was the matter, 
and she replied that there was a man standing close to me in 
the doorway of my study and on the right-hand side of it. 
She described him as stooping and with his shoulders up 
and rather " humped," and having thick hair and a beard 
which went under the chin in a kind of fringe. Height 
apparently about five feet three inches ; legs rather thin 
and encased in tight black trousers and wearing elastic-side 
boots, with tabs at back. She continued gazing on him 
some little time and then said that a book was appearing 
in his hand, and on the back of the book was a coronet, and 
shortly afterwards appeared the letters L N. She said 
that she thought this indicated " Ellen." To this sug- 
gestion I made no reply. 

The significance of the whole thing was beginning to 
dawn upon me, for I then for the first time remembered 
that the photograph of Lord Lytton was at that moment 
lying on the other side of the door only seven feet away 
from the place where the psychic figure was described as 
standing, and that this photo showed a man with thick 
bushy hair, a beard under the chin, and with back 



142 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

shoulders humped up, exactly as she described. When I 
remembered that the presence of this photo in the house 
was unknown to any one of its occupants save myself, 
the wonder of the thing began to impress itself upon me. 
At this juncture the door of the dining-room, opening out 
on the hall in which we were standing, and where up to 
this moment we had been alone, was opened, and my 
daughter Marjorie peered from behind the half-open door. 
Seeing us standing and looking fixedly she retreated, and 
in a few seconds returned with her sisters Sylvia and 
Dorothy, and together they came into the hall and stood 
watching us. It now occurred to me to see if the figure 
which my wife evidently still saw, and which was invisible 
to me, could be seen by the children. Without telling them 
what was seen or giving them any information, I first asked 
Marjorie if she saw anything in the doorway of my study. 
She replied : " No." I then asked Sylvia if she saw anything, 
only to receive a negative answer. I now asked Dorothy, 
my little daughter then aged six and a half years, if she 
saw anything. To my great delight, she at once said : " Yes." 
I asked what she saw. She replied : " A white mist." I 
asked her on which side of the doorway it was. She replied : 
" On the right-hand side." I now approached the spot, 
and held up my hand, asking her to stop me when my hand 
was level with the top of the mist. She did this, and my 
wife at once said that it indicated the height of the figure 
she saw. I then asked Dorothy to stop me when my hand 
touched the side of the mist, and on her doing so, my wife 
said this point indicated the figure's side. Further 
questioned, my little daughter described the mist as appear- 
ing " white, like mist in the fields seen a long way off," 
and she further volunteered the statement that the mist 
was " ragged at the edges." 

I got a pencil and paper, and drawing an outline of the 
doorway, I gave her the pencil, and asked her if she could 
draw the shape of the mist. She at once did so, and I was 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 143 

greatly astonished and impressed to see her draw the out- 
line of a man with his shoulders, or back, distinctly humped, 
and bearing a very striking resemblance to the psychic 
figure in the photograph, which photograph she had never 
seen, and of the presence of which in the house she was 
entirely ignorant. The vision persisted for a considerable 
time. I should think fully eight minutes elapsed before it 
disappeared. Its disappearance was instantaneous to my 
wife, but my daughter said that it appeared to grow shorter 
and to sink down into the floor. The strikingly evidential 
nature of this vision will be at once apparent on examin- 
ing the reproduction of the photo and sketch, which were 
reproduced in Light for nth September 1915. Afterwards, 
when questioning my daughter Dorothy as to the appear- 
ance of the mist, she pointed to some white marguerite 
flowers, and said : " It was whiter than those." 

Anyone who has seen an etherealisation or materialisation 
will recognise the aptness of the child's illustration. When 
shown the photo and the engraving published originally by 
Macmillan, my wife said that the face and the pose with the 
shoulders humped were strikingly like what she had seen, 
and that the nose of the figure she saw was exactly similar 
to that shown in the engraving. I now wrote Admiral 
Moore, informing him of what had happened. A careful 
examination of all the facts bears out the opinion expressed 
by the Admiral, and which I also fully share, that the 
famous author of The Last Days of Pompeii did, in very 
truth, honour us with his presence. In conclusion, I may 
state that I was not thinking either about Lord Lytton 
or the photograph when I approached the door of my 
study, but was intent on other matters of an entirely different 
nature. All the witnesses have signed an account of this 
remarkable experience and are prepared to attest it on oath. 

The next case is very instructive from several points of 
view. On 9th May 19 16 I had business in Leeds, distant 
some fifteen miles from my vicarage, and in the afternoon, 



i 4 4 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

having an hour to spare, I took up a newspaper, and there 
happened to see the advertisement of a clairvoyante then 
in Leeds. As psychic investigation had for some years 
interested me greatly, I resolved on the spur of the moment 
to visit her and test her powers, pour passer le temps. 
On arriving I asked if she could give me a demonstration 
of clairvoyance. She almost immediately said to me : 
"There is a young man standing close to you, very tall, 
having a long face, a dimple in the chin, and hair parted 
in the middle and brushed up on one side. Age about 
twenty-five. ' ' She then asked if I recognised such a person. 
I replied that I did not. I then asked if he were deceased. 
She said she could not tell. As nothing more was given 
to me, and nothing that seemed to be of the slightest im- 
portance, I hastily came to the conclusion that though 
a smart woman of the world she possessed no psychic gifts. 
I was about to take my leave, and stood, hat in hand and 
with my umbrella, loose and unwrapped, hooked over my 
left arm, on the point of turning away, when she suddenly 
cried : " Stay ! Here is something ! " " What ? " I said. 
She replied: "That young man again. He is so distinct. 
Don't you know him ? " I again said that I did not re- 
cognise the description. She then said : " Why, don't 
you know who this is ? " at the same time assuming an 
attitude with the head slightly on one side and the eyes 
thrown up with a strongly marked upward look. I said : 
" Madam, I never saw such a person." She said: " That 
is strange." Suddenly she cried : " Oh, his face is now on 
your umbrella." By this time I was getting rather im- 
patient, so I turned away and departed. It began to rain 
heavily and I had a long journey from the home station to 
my vicarage, and arrived there wet through. Going upstairs, 
I changed quickly and came down to a very welcome hot 
meal, not having uttered a word about my experience in 
Leeds or having spoken to a soul since I entered the house. 
As I passed into the room I saw my wife take a book from 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 145 

the top of the piano and seat herself at table. She poured 
me out a cup of coffee, and as I was drinking the first 
draught she opened the book and took out an old photo- 
graph, saying : "Do you know who this is ? " I took it 
from her and gazed at it in astonishment. It showed a 
young man, very tall, with a long face, hair parted in the 
middle and well brushed up on one side, dimpled chin, and 
wearing the exact same upward look — as though slightly 
leaning forward and looking upward — as that assumed by 
the clairvoyante when she said : " Don't you know who this 
is ? " Before I could utter a word my wife said : " Do 
you know who that is ? " I replied in the negative. She 
said : " It is a portrait of my father taken when about 
twenty-six " ! 

And now for another clenching fact. The umbrella 
hooked over my arm, on the unwrapped folds of which the 
clairvoyante saw the young man's face projected, belonged 
to my wife's father, and was given to me at his death, and 
this was one of the first occasions on which I had used it ! 

This incident bears clear evidence of having been carefully 
engineered from the spirit world, as clear, in its degree, as 
that afforded by the series of events described in Acts x. 
3-18. Telepathy and all other anti-spiritual theories are 
ruled out, for 

1. I had no previous intention of visiting a psychic when 
setting out, and was not thinking of my father-in-law. 

2. I had no knowledge of the existence of the photo, or 
of the appearance of my wife's father when a young man. 

3. I did not recognise the clairvoyante's description. 

4. The clairvoyante was a complete stranger to me and 
I had never seen her before in my life. 

5. I gave no name or address or any information that 
could identify me to the clairvoyante. 

6. I did not speak a single word concerning my Leeds 
experience to anyone while on my journey, or on arriving 
home until after my wife had shown me the photo. 

K 



146 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

I challenge anyone to explain satisfactorily this experi- 
ence by any non-spiritual hypothesis. 

Another lesson to be learned from this experience is not 
to be too hasty in judgment when dealing with psychics. 
More than once have I had to apologise to such persons, 
subsequent events completely vindicating them and proving 
that they were right and I was wrong. Patient observation 
and record, with judgment by ultimate results, is the only 
fair method, as it is the only truly scientific one. 

On 17th September 1912 I had another experience 
of connected phenomena in places wide apart, on this 
occasion occurring simultaneously. Without warning I 
visited my mother at Rawtenstall, distant twenty-five 
miles from Weston. As I approached the house I took out 
my watch. The time was 2.30. When mother opened the 
door she said that she had just been greatly alarmed by a 
loud crash as of fire-irons thrown upon the hearth, but had 
found nothing displaced. Neither I nor mother communi- 
cated with Weston, and I returned next day. As soon as 
I got into the house my wife said : " Yesterday, at half- 
past two, we heard a loud crash upstairs, and on running 
up found the fire-irons in the Grey Room and Top Red 
Room thrown into the middle of the floor ! 

This was evidently brought about by spiritual beings 
who followed me and knew the psychological moment. 
All mortal action is here ruled out. 

Hundreds of cases of the apparition and manifestation 
of those long dead are on record, and this chapter could 
easily be expanded into a large volume, the difficulty being 
not to find cases but to choose among so many. 

I conclude with two cases of exceptional interest, which, 
occurring as they did in my own house and under my own 
immediate observation, I can vouch for in every particular. 

On 13th August 1905 died my aunt, Leah Coates, daughter 
of Charles Coates, engineer, of Crawshawbooth. She had 
lived a very retiring and uneventful life, and there was 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 147 

nothing in its record that would have led one to expect 
such an extraordinary manifestation from the other world 
as she succeeded in bringing about. Her death occurred 
under tragic circumstances. She was seized with a fit, 
or faint, in the act of ascending the stairs, and in the fall 
struck her head so heavily as to render herself unconscious. 
Recovering partly, she managed to crawl to where her elder 
sister, Elizabeth, who had been a patient and heroic sufferer 
from a paralytic stroke for three years, was seated in her 
chair, and again sank unconscious at her feet. They were 
alone in the house. In this terrible situation Elizabeth, 
though deprived of speech and completely paralysed down 
the right side, rose to sublime heights and, dragging her 
poor half-dead body to the window, broke a pane of glass 
with a stick, which she waved through the aperture until 
she attracted the attention of the passers-by, who, rushing 
in, beheld a piteous sight. Leah only recovered conscious- 
ness for a few brief intervals and then passed to the higher 
life a few days after the accident. 

The interment took place in the family vault, and as we 
watched the coffin being lowered into it, knowing nothing 
then of the real Communion of Saints, although I had been 
some years an ordained priest of the Anglican Church, I 
certainly never thought that I should again hear her voice, 
or that we should 3ee her form, in this world. 

Five years passed and Elizabeth, the brave and patient 
sufferer, had joined her sister in that land where there is 
no more pain and where God wipes away the tears from all 
brave, patient faces, and mother, who for a time had lived 
with her and cared for her, came to live with me at Weston. 

In November, 1910, when mother had been with us some 
six months, there began a marvellous series of psychic 
manifestations, some of which are recorded in this book. 
The particular series of more intense manifestations lasted 
for nearly six months, and the record of them fills several 
hundred pages of manuscript. 



148 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

On 6th November 1910 several apparitions were seen in 
my mother's bedroom, and on the stairs and landing, by 
my mother, wife, son, daughters and the servant. One 
figure was of a woman in a beautiful white robe like the 
finest lace, and with a kind of veil over the face. On 
gth December, about 8 p.m., this figure was again seen. 

These were accompanied by a series of most extraordinary 
manifestations, which included the apparition of a winged 
figure, something like a cherub in appearance, the two wings 
being each about two feet in length and one foot broad, and 
having a rounded object like a child's head between them. 
These appeared over the door of mother's room several 
times, the wings fluttering like those of a bird. They were 
seen by my daughters Marjorie and Sylvia, my mother and 
a servant. During the apparition of this extraordinary 
thing, loud scratchings like those of a big bird or animal 
were heard upon the panels of the door, and a voice, appar- 
ently coming from the direction of the figure, cried : "I 
want you." This was repeated several times, and then 
the voice called : " Marie ! Marie ! " and finally : " Mary ! 
Mary ! Mary ! " Then followed a long growl like that of 
an animal, ending in a wail or moaning sound. All four 
witnesses heard this, and although instant search was 
made, nothing could be discovered to account for the 
appearance. 

nth December 1910, about 7 p.m. — The apparition of wings 
and the cherubic figure was repeated, and seen by my son, 
wife, mother, two eldest daughters and a servant — six 
persons in all. It was accompanied again by the scratching 
noise upon the panels of the door. The wings appeared 
over the door of mother's room and fluttered there for 
a time. On this occasion they were shorter than on 
9th December, being only about a foot in length. All 
attempts on our part to solve this mystery were unavailing. 
I was greatly puzzled as to the meaning of the winged figure, 
but especially as to what the " scratchings " implied. 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 149 

At last we concluded that it was the appearance of some 
sort of a birdlike creature in materialised form, and that 
this scratching was caused by its claws being applied to 
the panels, as it fluttered above the door. 

On each occasion nothing could be discovered to account 
for the appearances or sounds, and the happenings took 
place in bright lamplight. 

18th December, 7 p.m — Mother, my son Herschel and 
daughter Marjorie were in the dining-room. Suddenly the 
door was flung wide open. Herschel sprang to the door, but 
found no one there. A voice then cried : "I want you," 
the last word long-drawn-out and uttered in a wailing tone. 
No person or appearance could be seen. About 7.30 p.m. 
mother and my daughter Sylvia were together in the 
dining-room, which was brilliantly lighted by a 100- 
candle-power lamp, the door was open, the window shut. 
Suddenly both mother and Sylvia saw emerge, from behind 
some curtains, a tall, white figure of a woman. It was 
clad in most beautiful flowing white drapery and appeared 
to be quite six inches taller than any person in the house. 
It seemed to glide down one side of the room, making for 
the open door. Mother at once started in chase of the 
figure, followed by Sylvia. The figure in white crossed the 
hall and went down the passage leading to the kitchens. 
Mother was not more than a yard behind it all the way 
down the passage, and made repeated clutches at it, but 
her hands always failed to grasp it. 

My son Herschel and daughter were in the hall at the 
moment when the figure, with my mother and Sylvia in 
chase, emerged from the dining-room, and thus saw what 
took place. When the figure reached the foot of the back 
stairs, which open out from the passage, it darted up the 
staircase. At this moment my wife and the housemaid, Ida, 
entered the passage from the kitchen, and all six persons 
saw the white figure. When the figure reached the foot of 
the stairs, mother rushed at it, making a frantic attempt to 



150 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

grasp it. The figure entered the steep staircase with a very 
quick movement but no noise. It seemed to glide. At 
this moment the drapery quite filled the width of the 
stairs, and was very white. My mother made a last rush 
at it and swung her arm right on to the figure and the mass 
of flowing drapery, clutching at it. Her hand met no 
resistance and she could grasp nothing. All the others saw 
my mother attempting to grasp the apparition. 

When she made this last attempt and swung her arm 
right upon the figure all heard a loud growl or snarl like 
that of an animal. 

This experience, part of a series of wonders which took 
place on this day, puzzled us very much. I discussed the 
growling sound with the six persons who heard it, and all 
were positive as to the sound. 

I remember putting the question to myself, and wonder- 
ing what could be the explanation. The witnesses of this 
and the previous happenings all signed their names to the 
accounts which were carefully written out in each case the 
same evening. 

22nd December 1910. — On returning from Otley with my 
wife, I found mother, the children and the servants much 
excited and relating how they had all heard a voice calling 
from the upper story and talking with them. It was 
preceded by loud noises and the ringing of all the bells. 
Mother went upstairs and heard a voice calling her. She 
called Marjorie and Sylvia, and together they went up the 
staircase, listening to a wonderful voice calling to them. 
My son and the two servants came into the hall and stood 
at the foot of the stairs and also listened. All heard the 
voice, which talked in long, wailing tones, very loud and clear. 
First it cried : "I want you-u-u. I want you-u-u." 
Mother then went upstairs, holding Marjorie and Sylvia 
by the hand, and a long conversation was carried on with 
the voice, which seemed to come out of the air and from the 
top of the staircase. 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 151 

Mother asked who it was, and the voice replied : " Leah," 
and a long conversation concerning private family affairs 
was kept up. Finally the voice cried out : " Good-night," 
twice, in a long, indescribably sad, wailing sound. Six 
persons thus heard the voice on this occasion, and are 
positive that it appeared to come from the top of the stairs. 
A thorough search was made, but no other person was found 
in the house. Leah said she was calling from the Grey 
Room. Mother went into this room, but nothing was seen. 

The account of this wonderful experience was signed by 
the six witnesses, who all were most positive in their state- 
ments. 

23rd December, Friday. — About 4 p.m. mother said she 
heard the voice again. I ran to her on the staircase but 
heard nothing. I then ran up to the Grey Room, but saw 
nothing. 

Coming down, I heard mother shouting that she had 
heard it again. I heard a sort of wail, evidently inside the 
house and on the staircase. I now went out to post my 
letters, and on returning I was told by mother, Sylvia 
and my son Herschel that the voice had sounded again and 
that they had spoken to it several times. It first cried : 
" I want you," and then begged my mother to go to the 
district where Leah had lived, as it had done the day before. 
About 7.30 I came in from the garden with a large branch 
of holly which I had cut for a Christmas tree. My wife 
met me, saying that the voice was sounding again. I 
hurried into the hall and found mother on the second flight 
of stairs calling to " Leah." 

To her repeated inquiries at last a most wonderful, weird, 
clear and distinct voice sounded out in slow, wailing tones : 
" I want you-u-u," long drawn out. It seemed to come out 
of the air or echo from the upper rooms. It was so clear, 
distinct, wailing and pathetic as to make an impression on 
me never to be forgotten. 

I bolted the passage door so as to shut off the servants 



152 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

and children and simplify the problem of investigation. 
I then called my wife, and we went up the stairs and saw 
mother on the next flight above us. The voice continued 
to sound in a most wonderful, indescribably sad, wailing 
tone, long-drawn-out and seeming to come from the air. 
I have never heard anything like it before or since. I came 
to the conclusion that the awful intense sorrow of its tone 
was due to the method employed in producing the voice, and 
not so much to actual sorrow. Difficulties of which we can 
have little conception must stand in the way of producing 
clear human speech without the intervention of grossly 
material larynx and throat or their equivalents. I now 
searched the house thoroughly, first going through that part 
where the voice sounded, but no one save myself, wife and 
mother could be found in that part, nor any stranger in the 
rest of the house. I then caused my wife to go to the bottom 
of the stairs and into the upper rooms, and to various 
positions on the staircase, and repeat the long-drawn-out 
cry : " I want you-u-u," in a long wail, as we had heard 
the voice, but no matter how she tried the effect was totally 
unlike what we had heard. We could instantly locate the 
sound in all her attempts, and so when she and the children 
tried from outside the house, but the voice we had heard 
seemed to come out of the air, to pass from room to room in 
a way which entirely defied all attempts to imitate it. On 
the 22nd, when six persons heard it at one and the same 
time, my son, who was with the servants at the bottom of 
the staircase, is positive that neither of them uttered a 
sound and my two daughters, who were with my mother 
at the top of the staircase, are equally positive that neither 
they nor mother uttered a sound when the voice was calling. 
No other persons were in the house. 

2$th December 1910, about 3.30 p.m. — My wife was 
in the dining-room, which was brilliantly lighted. Door 
open, window closed and fast. The Christmas tree, which 
was planted in a small tub filled with earth, stood in the 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 153 

corner away from the door and window. A curtain was 
behind the tree. Suddenly she heard and saw the curtain 
quickly and forcibly drawn back, and the tall figure of 
a woman dressed in white appeared at the curtain and 
immediately walked clean through the Christmas tree. It 
neither overturned the tree nor displaced a single toy 
suspended thereon. It made for the open door, and my 
wife ran after it. It went up the back stairs. Shortly 
after, Ida, who had gone upstairs, saw the figure going 
downstairs, and Marjorie and my wife, then in the hall, 
saw the white lady coming down the front stairs. These 
appearances all took place in rapid succession and in the 
course of a few minutes. 

2tyth December 1910. — Mother heard the voice in the 
staircase again about 6 p.m. She took Marjorie and 
Sylvia with her and went up the stairs. The voice now 
cried : "I want you-u-u." All heard the voice coming 
apparently from the Grey Room. Mother asked what she 
wanted, and the voice again replied : "I want you-u-u." 
Mother said : " Do you want me to come to the Grey 
Room?" The voice replied: "Yes," in very prolonged 
tones. They went up together but found no one in the 
Grey Room. 

She came and told myself and wife, and a few minutes 
afterwards we both went to the Grey Room and requested 
that communication might be given by raps, while we called 
over the alphabet. Loud raps immediately came, and Leah 
was indicated as present. We greeted her, and immedi- 
ately a shower of loud raps or knockings sounded as though 
in jubilation. I now said : 

" Are you happy ? " — " No." 

" Can you tell us what you are unhappy about ? " — 
" Yes." 

We now called over the alphabet, the raps responding 
at the letters forming the message, and to our astonishment 
VAULT was spelled out ; then L E. 



154 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

We both expected the next letter to be an A, as part of 
the name " Leah," but instead of this, to our increasing 
astonishment, LETTERS was spelt out. 

I now said : " Do you mean the letters on the vault ? ' 
— " Yes " (loudly). 

Suddenly a light dawned upon me and I remembered that 
mother had said that owing to her own and Elizabeth's 
illness, and their removing from Crawshawbooth, the in- 
scription had not been put on the granite pillar. 

I now said : " Are you unhappy because your inscription 
has not been cut on the monument ? " 

The reply to this was instantaneous and very loud : 
"Yes." 

I was greatly surprised and moved at this and said : 
" Well, dear Auntie, we will see to it. It has been overlooked, 
so I understand, owing to Aunt Lizzie's and mother's 
illness, and to their removal." 

We went downstairs and told mother, who was visibly 
affected. Later in the evening the three of us went together 
to the Grey Room. 

Loud raps came almost immediately, and Leah again 
expressed the strongest desire for the inscription to be 
placed on the memorial pillar. Mother said she would 
attend to it, and asked if it would do in the spring. — " No." 
" Do you want it done at once ? " — " Yes." As it was 
winter the monumental mason demurred and said we 
must wait until better weather came, so that immediate 
action was not taken. 

Friday, 30th December. — In the forenoon mother and 
Sylvia heard the voice calling. A little later Marjorie and 
Ida heard the voice sounding from the Grey Room. They 
were positive that no other person was with them in the 
upper story. 

Later mother and the elder servant both together heard 
the voice calling and saying: " Marie — Leah." The voice 
came from the Grey Room. 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 155 

(Much of the furniture in the Grey Room had belonged 
especially to Leah.) 

1st January 1911. — Mother carried on a long con- 
versation with the voice sounding down the stairs. Marjorie, 
Sylvia and Herschel heard every word. Mother first said 
to the voice : "Is that Leah ? " and the reply came, clear 
and long-drawn-out: "Yes." Mother went up alone to 
the Grey Room and talked with it for a long time. 

8th January 191 1. — Ida saw Leah at the door of the 
Grey Room. The figure spoke to her and said : " Tell 
Marie to go into the dining-room. " Ida ran down in a great 
fright and found the elder servant downstairs. The voice 
began to sound down the staircase as usual, and mother 
carried on a long conversation with Leah. Both servants 
heard most of it. 

Wednesday, 1st March. — Ida in nursery, cleaning the 
room, about 2.30 p.m. -The white figure of Leah came in 
at the open door and passed close to her, then opened the 
dressing-room door leading from the nursery, and went in. 
Ida immediately ran down for us, and I and my wife 
searched the upper rooms. We found mother's bedroom 
all upset, and also the nursery dressing-room. These 
rooms are on different stories. Ida declared on oath that 
she had touched nothing. She was, at that time, the only 
servant in the house. 

Friday, 24th March 191 1. — Ida and the new servant- 
maid, Rosetta, were going, about 9.30 p.m., towards the 
dining-room, when they suddenly saw the tall white figure 
of Leah enter the dining-room. They followed and saw it 
standing, tall and white, near the window. The new girl 
Rosetta, screamed, and they both ran out into the hall. 
Leah then came out into the hall and went up the front 
stairs. Ida ran up the back stairs for mother who was in 
her bedroom. Mother came down the front stairs to the 
dining-room door. At this moment my wife, with Rosetta 
and Ida, were coming from the kitchens along the passage 



r56 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

and saw Leah standing close to mother. Leah then turned 
and went up the front stairs. Mother and Rosetta now 
followed up to the top landing, within a few yards of the 
Grey Room door. The wonderful voice began to sound, 
seeming to come from the ceiling. It carried on a long 
conversation with mother. The voice then said : " Marie, 
Marie. I want my name on the vault." 

Mother replied : "I am having it put on." 

Voice. — Do it now. 

Mother. — I have ordered it. 

Here the voice uttered expressions of disappointment 
and impatience, which were several times repeated. 

Then it ceased, and immediately all the bells rang together 
in a great peal, no one being near them, and the gong in 
the hall sounded. 

These astounding experiences not only established the 
identity of the apparition and communicating spirit in 
conjunction with certain amazing things which were to 
follow, but also showed in an unmistakable manner how 
terrene interests loom largely in the early days (or even 
years) of the spirit life. To conclude this incident — -before 
going further with the story of this wonderful manifestation 
from the other world of one who had " departed this life " — 
mother gave careful instructions for the cutting of the 
inscription, but, all unknown to us, for some reason or 
other, as afterwards transpired, they were not carried out 
until six months had elapsed. Meanwhile, in April, 191 1, 
mother returned for a time to her native place and the 
extraordinary manifestations of the voice ceased until 
September 24th. 

On this day, shortly after 7 p.m., the maid Ida was in the 
nursery, which is on the top flight and in the same range of 
rooms as the Grey Room. Suddenly she was startled to 
hear the wailing voice, long-drawn-out, calling to her from 
the Grey Room. It said : " Marie's put the name on the 
vault." She ran downstairs, much frightened as she was 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 157 

alone, and this voice had not been heard for a considerable 
time. My wife heard her fall down the stairs and repeatedly 
stumble in her fright, and when she appeared her face was 
white and she was badly scared. Ida said the voice seemed 
to come from the Grey Room, and sounded just the same 
as it did the previous year. We had had no communication 
from mother respecting the inscription on the vault, having 
left the matter entirely in her hands, as she was on the spot. 
I wrote to her informing her of the reoccurrence of the 
voice, and asking if she had attended to the matter. 

In due course I heard from her saying that the inscription 
had just been completed and that she had received the 
account. The bill, which lies before me as I write, is dated 
September 22nd, and she received it on Saturday, the 23rd, 
the day before the voice sounded here at Weston. We 
have no post here on Sundays and no communication of any 
kind had been received from mother. The bill was paid on 
the 27th. We were thus first informed of the completion 
of the work by Leah's voice sounding from beyond the 
grave ! 

To resume now the thread of my narrative. 

18th January 1911. — About 4 p.m. mother came to me 
and said that she and my wife had just looked into the 
cupboard under the staircase and that my wife had seen 
a white dog. I made light of it, thinking she might be 
mistaken. 

At 5 p.m. my wife ran to me and told me that she, Marjorie, 
Sylvia and Baby Dorothy had just followed a white dog 
upstairs to our bedroom, and that it ran under the bed. 
It was daylight, and it was seen distinctly. Baby saw it 
and ran to the side of the bed, and crawled under after the 
dog, crying : " Bow-wow ; bow-wow." 

About 5.20 the servant, Ida, saw the dog go into my 
mother's bedroom. 

At 5.30 my wife saw the tall white figure of Leah come 
down the main staircase into the hall. It was accompanied 



158 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

by the white dog. Both lady and dog disappeared at my 
study door. My wife at once ran to me and told me. She 
said that the dog was a kind of terrier with glossy short 
white hair, erect ears and short tail, and had a big oval black 
spot on its back, rather to one side and down the flank. 
The mystery of the loud growl, heard when mother 
attempted to seize the figure, was solved. The dog was 
defending its mistress. They were together in the spirit 
world. 

About 5.45 I heard a loud cry and a crash of breaking 
glass. My wife ran down the stairs with part of a lamp in 
her hand. 

She said that when half-way up the back stairs the white 
dog sprang at her as though leaping upon her shoulder. 
It seemed to knock off the lamp glass and burner, which 
both fell on the stairs, the glass being broken, while the oil 
was splashed all over the wall. She was a good deal shaken 
and startled by this experience. We had no dog in the house, 
never having kept a dog. 

Ida shortly after this saw the figure of Leah in white 
near the door of the Grey Room. It spoke to her and said : 
" Tell Marie to come to the Grey Room." So ended this 
marvellous day. 

My wife again saw the dog twice, on 27th January and on 
2nd February. She saw it on the lower stairs near the 
dining-room door, and had a very good view of it. She was 
in the hall, and the dog stood still and looked at her. It was 
all alert, and she saw its eyes bright and shining, ears erect, 
short tail, and particularly noticed that it appeared to be 
trembling or shivering very much. She also noticed that 
its hair was so short that she could see the skin through the 
hair. After looking at her for some time it slowly went 
upstairs, and my wife followed it until it disappeared in the 
little room at the end of the passage. 

This was wonderfully evidential, as it was the exact 
description of Leah's dog, which dog my wife had never 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 159 

seen in life, nor had any of my children or the servant girl 
Ida. Nor was there any photograph of the dog in exist- 
ence, nor had one ever been taken. It " died " several years 
before its mistress. It was a terrier, like the smooth English 
terrior, much taller and more slender than a fox terrier. 
It had a short, erect tail, a very short white coat, through 
which one could see its skin, bright glistening eyes, and was 
of a very active temperament, full of energy. It quivered 
with eagerness, and if alert and looking at one, trembled 
excessively with a kind of concentration of energy difficult 
to describe. It had a big oval black spot on its back, 
extending down on to its right flank. This description, 
given by my wife and the other witnesses who had 
never seen the dog in life, was extremely convincing 
to me especially the description of its trembling and 
quivering. 

2W1 March 191 1. — About noon the servant, Ida, brought 
a jug of water to my study door. On answering her knock, 
she said : " That dog has just followed me on the passage, 
sir." Baby Dorothy was in the hall, very excited, and was 
saying : " Bow-wow ; bow-wow." I held up my hand for 
Ida to be silent, and listened to Dorothy. She ran about 
the hall, making steps hither and thither, as though seeking 
something, and all the while crying : " Bow-wow, up 'tairs, 
bow-wow, Pa 'tudy," at the same time pointing up the 
staircase and to my study door. 

She had seen the dog at the same time as Ida, who also 
noticed the big oval black spot upon its back. Dorothy 
was one year eleven months old, and her actions and 
gestures were very significant and absolutely convincing. 

My Aunt Leah continued to manifest wonderfully for 
several months, appearing to the various members of the 
household, and also speaking in the direct voice audible to 
all present. She was last seen and heard on 9th February 
1913, when, appearing suddenly, tall and white, the face 
plump and clearly visible, she took out of my wife's hands 



160 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

an article she much used when in the earth life, saying: 
" It's Leah ; it's mine." The dog continued to be seen 
from time to time, notably on 25th December 1911, when 
it was seen in our bedroom, and again on 8th October 
1914. 

Again on 22nd August 1915, having just come into the 
house, I sat down in my study and began to read the 
account of Leah speaking to us in the direct voice. 
This was in the privacy of my study, alone, and all un- 
known to my wife. Just as I had got well into the part 
describing the voice sounding down the staircase, my wife 
rushed breathlessly into the study, crying that she had just 
seen " the white dog with the black spot on its back and side 
the same as appeared with Leah," and that she followed it 
and that it had come up to my study door and then 
disappeared 1 

I have had many other, striking and dramatic, evidences 
of the fact that we are surrounded by invisibles who know 
and can see what one is doing, and who can, when the right 
conditions are present, engineer events and happenings 
linking up with actions done in private, and unknown to any 
other mortal but onese]f. Some of these I shall relate. 

On two occasions Leah was seen to hit the gong in the 
hall and make it sound (1st January and 26th February 
1911), while on another, 5th March 1911, Leah, appearing 
to Ida, said : " Tell Marie to come up." Mother went 
upstairs and talked with the voice for some time, finally 
asking Leah to appear. Immediately the voice ceased. 
Leah's dog dashed down the staircase, leaping and frisking 
frantically, into the hall, where stood my wife and the 
servant Ida. Both saw it leap up at the gong, causing it 
to ring, and then pass up the back staircase. Leah and 
her dog were evidently the cause of the remarkable series 
of gong ringings which took place on 18th December 19 10, 
and when I and several other persons both heard the gong 
ring and saw it swaying, no one being in the hall and the 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 161 

door being locked, and this sounding occurring several 
times during the day. The gong has been sounded on 
other occasions when no one has been near it. 

As recently as ioth February 1916 the dog was seen 
with perfect distinctness. On this occasion it was followed 
through the house. I asked my wife several test questions 
as to little points connected with its appearance known 
only to me, and which could only have been answered by 
one who saw the dog, and these test questions were answered 
with absolute exactness, and one or two details added which 
could only have been given by a person who actually saw 
the dog at the time. 

This dog was my Aunt Leah's great pet. It " died " 
five or six years before she did. This marvellous ex- 
perience shows clearly that the idea of Pope's Indian, who 
thought that 

Admitted to that equal sky 

His faithful dog would bear him company 

is not so wildly improbable as was at one time thought. 

It is practically certain that the more intelligent animals, 
which have been intimately associated with human beings, 
do bear them company in the other world (vide Photograph- 
ing the Invisible, page 163; also Lieutenant Barter's case), 
at any rate for a time. 

This wonderful case, with its etherialisations, material- 
isations, and direct voice phenomena, and its striking 
evidences of identity, is, taken all together, perhaps the 
most remarkable on record, and the series of apparitions 
of a human being and one of the lower animals together, 
and under associated conditions, is unique. The witnesses 
signed the various statements in my presence, and on oath, 
which I am also prepared to do independently where my 
own testimony is concerned. 

I now come to the second case, one which is of especial 
interest to me. 



162 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

On 24th June 1913 " died " my mother, Mary Tweedale, 
the daughter of Charles Coates, engineer, of Crawshaw- 
booth, and sister of Leah whose remarkable return has just 
been chronicled. Her passing from this world to the 
next was foretold by a remarkable vision and prophecy, 
which was accurately fulfilled to the day, hour and minute, 
as will be found duly set forth in these pages. 

On the morning of 27th June, when the workmen came 
to solder up the metal coffin, and screw up the oak one 
containing it, retiring into my study, I locked the door, 
and determined on a plan which should constitute a test of 
mother's identity if she should return and manifest to us. 
The blind was down and I was the only mortal in the room. 

Looking around the study, I lighted upon a dried acorn, 
one of the previous year's growth, and enclosing this in my 
left hand, which I plunged deep into my pocket, allowing 
no one to see it, I returned to the room where lay the mortal 
remains of my dear mother. I asked the men to retire, and 
when they had done so I locked the door and drew the 
portiere curtain carefully over it. The window-blind was 
down and I was alone with the dead. I now removed the 
flowers from around the face, and inserting my left hand, 
still closed, down by the side of her face, I passed it right 
under the head. Only then did I open my hand and 
allow the acorn to fall from it. Withdrawing my hand, 
I rearranged the drapery and flowers, and then, unlocking 
the door, I admitted the workmen, who immediately 
soldered up the metal coffin and screwed down the oak one. 
During these operations I stood at the head of the coffin 
and made sure that they did not remove the flowers or 
disturb the body in any way. I was therefore certain that 
no other mortal besides myself knew what I had placed 
under my mother's head. I determined to keep my own 
counsel and I guarded my secret with the most scrupulous 
care. 

Saturday, 12th July 1913. — My wife was standing before 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 163 

the dressing-table in the Red Room (mother's room, in 
which she died), putting on a brooch, when she saw reflected 
in the mirror a strange object lying upon mother's bed, 
which occupied the same position as on the day she died. 

As observed in the mirror she thought it was a piece of 
coloured fabric, and turned round to see, when, to her 
amazement, she beheld what seemed to be a huge pale brown 
egg upon the white counterpane. My wife stretched out 
her hand to touch it when it rolled from under her hand, 
and so over the far side of the bed and disappeared. She 
immediately ran down to my study and told me. The 
exact similarity in shape and colour between a dried acorn 
out of its cup and a brown egg will be at once apparent. 
I made a careful note of the event in my record of such 
happenings, which I always kept locked up in my study, 
but took good care not to give the slightest hint of the 
nature of the object I had hidden under my mother's head 
either in the record or in conversation. On this point I 
was extremely careful throughout. 

Tuesday, March 20th, 1914. — My wife in the Grey Room, 
opening the drawers of the wardrobe. Suddenly there 
appeared by her side a woman having a strong resemblance 
to mother, who seemed to wish to look into the drawers. 
The figure was quite transparent. This wardrobe had 
been much used by mother and contained many of her 
things. I was out at the time. 

2nd May 1914, 7 p.m. — In the garden, when my wife 
came running to me in great excitement, saying that she 
had just seen mother walking slowly up the front stairs. 
She was dressed in black and was slowly going up the first 
flight, swaying her body and bearing heavily on each foot 
alternately, like people do who are old and feeble, and as 
she used to do towards the last. 

I ran into the house with her and we sat for psychic com- 
munication at once. Raps soon came, and communication 
was carried on by calling over the alphabet. 



164 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

" Is that mother ? " — " Yes." came the reply. 

We greeted her, and I then said : 

" Can you tell me, mother, what it was that I put under 
your head in your coffin ? " — " Yes." 

I then asked her to do so. Slowly this sentence was 
spelled out : "I grow slow." 

Much surprised, I said : "Is that the answer ? " — " Yes." 

This answer brought instant conviction to me that the 
person giving it knew what I had placed under mother's head, 
as the words refer most evidently to the oak tree which is 
of proverbially slow growth. This sentence and the fact 
that my wife had seen and recognised mother only a few 
minutes before produced the conviction that she was 
present and giving me this information. I then told my 
children that mother had been seen, and also the message 
just received, and they signed a statement to that effect, 
as also did the servant Lily. 

igth June 1914.— We sat about 2.30 p.m. for psychic com- 
munication. Present : myself, wife and the servant Lily. 
To our surprise Leah's name was given as present. I asked 
for the name of her dog, the one seen with her, and this was 
correctly given. Thomas Tweedale's name was now given 
as present. He had previously been seen and recognised 
in the house on January 12th, 191 1, as related elsewhere, 
and I had also heard him speak to me on two occasions in 
the house, and had a most convincing conversation with 
him at Mr Stead's house in Wimbledon in the presence of 
several witnesses, through the psychic power of Mr Wriedt. 
I now put a series of questions to him concerning details 
of his career and events in my boyhood which I knew 
positively were only known to myself. These were all 
answered with absolutely convincing accuracy. I now 
said : 

" Father, do you know what I placed under mother's 
head ? " — " Yes." 

" Please tell me." 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 165 

In reply CLUSTER was spelled out. This was 
significant. Acorns do often grow in small clusters. 

Monday, 6th July 1914. — About 10.45 a.m. my wife sug- 
gested a sitting. I was much disinclined, but sat at her 
request. There was a manifestation almost at once, and 
the name Mary Tweedale was given. 

" Is that mother ? "— " Yes." 

" If it be you, can you tell me what I placed under your 
head in your coffin ? " — " Yes." 

" Please do so." 

Then, to my great astonishment and delight, QUOR- 
C U S was slowly spelled out. 

I at once recognised it as intended for the Latin word, 
quercus, an oak. 

It now became perfectly plain to me that mother knew 
what I had put under her head and she was giving me the 
answer piecemeal and in such a way as to combat the tele- 
pathic theory entirely, for all the replies had been entirely 
different to what was in my mind on each occasion. Each 
time I had been thinking of " acorn." 

As for my wife, the replies entirely puzzled her, and not 
being in possession of the key to the situation, and not 
knowing Latin, she could make nothing of them. 

Mother went on to inform me that she was happy, and 
that the new life was all she had pictured it. She also said 
that the hermetically sealed metal coffin had caused her 
spirit to linger around the place of interment for a con- 
siderable time — probably because the decomposition of the 
body is retarded. This would seem to be an argument for 
earth burial. 

I now asked her if she could remember what she once 
hit me with when I was a lad and late for school. 

" A coat." [Correct.] 

" Can you tell me, mother, what was in the coat pocket ? " 

" A knife." 

This was further proof of my mother's presence. Late 



166 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

one morning for school, she once struck me over the head 
with a coat, not intending to harm me. Unfortunately 
there was a heavy jack knife in the pocket, and this acted 
like a slung shot and, alighting on my head, gave me a 
severe blow. No one in the mortal knew of this but myself. 

24th June 1915. — Awoke at 4 a.m., dreaming of mother. 
I remembered that this was the anniversary of her passing, 
which took place at five minutes to three a.m. I then 
fell asleep again. 

Shortly after 8 a.m. the servant Lydia brought tea to 
the bedroom door. She told us that when bringing it up a 
few minutes previously, as she got to the top of the back 
stairs, and was just turning down the passage to our bed- 
room, she saw a tall, white figure of a woman dressed in a 
long gown with something round the waist. The woman 
had her hand upon the door knob. As soon as Lydia saw 
her the woman stepped back two steps and faded away. 
Lydia, frightened, put down the tea-tray on the top step and 
ran downstairs and told the children what she had seen. 
My son and two elder daughters confirmed this. I am 
confident that this was mother. She was found dead in bed 
in the adjoining room at 8 a.m., on 24th June 1913. 

6th July 1915. — About 10.30 p.m. a figure followed my 
wife out of the Red Room (mother's bedroom) and then 
preceded her into our bedroom, and sat down upon a 
chair. I could not see it, but it was plain to my wife's 
clairvoyant vision. She said that the woman's face was 
like mother, but the face was partly hidden by a cloth 
bound round it, like mother had when she was lying in 
state. However, what settled her identity, apart from the 
likeness of the face, was the fact that she was wearing a 
peculiar pair of knitted woollen boots with red tops which 
she wore almost constantly during her illness. When seated 
she appeared to be cutting string into lengths of about 
three inches. This went on for a minute or two in bright 
lamplight. 






APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 167 

I now resolved on an experiment. I made a mental re- 
quest that if it were mother wishing to communicate with 
us she would cut the pieces six inches in length, instead of 
three. Within fifteen seconds of this mental request my 
wife cried out : " Oh, she is now cutting longer pieces. 
They seem to be about five inches " ! ! 

Mother now arranged the pieces of string in the form of 
an upright with a cross piece so as to form a capital T, 
and shortly after disappeared. 

This was a very remarkable and evidential experience. 
Another remarkable thing was that it was the anniversary 
of mother's appearance last year, 6th July. My wife 
keeps no record of these events, and mine is carefully 
locked up in my study, 

yth July. — Sat for psychic communication again about 
1.30 p.m. Mother at once gave her name as present. I 
now mentally requested that if it were she, she would give 
me a single word proving her identity. To my delight, the 
word OAK was at once spelled out. 

So the proof accumulates. This word, in answer to a 
mental request, was most convincing. My wife, knowing 
nothing of the request nor the meaning of the Latin word 
quercus previously given, was utterly at a loss to know what 
it meant, and I did not enlighten her. She hazarded a 
guess that it referred to mother's oak coffin. I made no 
comment on this. 

yd January 19 17. — Wife and I sat for psychic com- 
munication about 3.30. The name Mary Tweedale was 
given. I greeted her, and then said : 

" Mother, can you tell me what occupied my attention 
one beautiful spring afternoon when you took me for a 
walk to Fall Spring Well ? " — " Yes ! Daisies." 

This was correct. It was a glorious spring day, with the 
lark soaring in the blue. We passed through a big field of 
spring flowers and I gathered great bunches of daisies. 
I remember they had very long stems. My wife knew 



168 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

nothing of this — it was one of those little details hidden 
away in the memories of long ago, bringing absolute con- 
viction of mother's personal presence. 

I said : " Correct, mother ; now can you give me full 
particulars of what I put under your head in your coffin ? " 
Yes." 

" Please spell it." 

The letters A E N were at once spelled out. 

" Is a right ? "— " Yes." 
Is e right ? "— " Yes." 

" Is n right ? "— " Yes." 

■' Are there any letters missed out ? " — " Yes." 

" Will you please give the missing letters ? " 

and R were spelt out. 

" Are R N E A the letters of the word indicating what 
put under your head ? " — " Yes." 

" How many letters are there in the word ? " — " Five." 
" When you first gave A E N, was A the first letter ? " 

Yes." 

Was n the last letter ? " — " Yes." 
Will you please indicate the order of the other letters ? " 
Yes." 

Where does e come ? " — " Second." 
Where does r come ? " — " Fourth." 
" Where does o come ? " — " Third." 
Is the full word A E R N ? "— " Yes." 

1 replied : " Are 3'ou sure it is E ? " — " Yes." 

Now note the remarkable resemblance between C and E as 
written, and as printed in small type — c, e. On this the 
only occasion in which the word " acorn " was given (of 
which I had naturally been thinking all along), the order 
of the letters was deliberately altered, and e substituted for 
c ; all showing the counter moves of a clever and independent 
living personality checkmating my own. The whole of this 
reply was given in a wonderful way, evidently to show 
that telepathy was not at work. On the occasion of each 



APPEARANCES LONG AFTER DEATH 169 

of these communications I was naturally thinking of the 
word acorn, and had it been telepathy that was at work 
this word would have come straight through long before, 
whereas every care was evidently taken on this and other 
occasions to give the information in a form quite different 
to the thought in my own mind, and this is especially 
noticeable in the former communications, when " I grow 
slow," " cluster " and " quorcus " were given, words which 
were entirely absent from my mind and which surprised 
me very much. 

16th March 1917. — A Mr S. S. Smith called upon me in the 
afternoon unexpectedly. Knowing that in the past he had 
shown clairvoyant powers, as we sat round the fire almost 
in the dark I placed in his hand a small piece of my mother's 
hair, without giving him any information either as to what 
I wanted or whose hair it was. He immediately said : "I 
feel the mother's influence." 

I replied : " Do you get anything else ? " 

He replied : "I see a very curious thing. Perhaps you 
will laugh at me, but I give you just what I see." 

I said : " What is it ? " 

" He answered : "I see an egg rack. You know what an 
egg rack is ? " 

I said : " Yes." 

" Well," he continued, " I see an egg rack, but with only 
one hole in it, and that is in the middle of the stand, and in 
this hole sits a big egg." 

He seemed to indicate that the egg was of huge dimen- 
sions and that it occupied the whole stand or rack. I was 
very careful not to give any lead or to question him, but 
to allow him to give his own description without any 
guidance. I made no comment on his description, and 
he is unaware, up to the time of my writing this, of the 
significance of that vision at which he thought I might 
laugh. Its confirmation of previous evidence will be 
apparent when my wife's vision of the huge egg-like object 



170 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

on 12th July 19 13 is recalled, and when it is also considered 
how closely an egg placed in an egg stand or rack resembles 
an acorn in its cup. 

Thus, slowly and by degrees, came the evidence for my 
mother's survival, brought about in such a manner as to 
be particularly convincing. On many occasions since has 
mother come to us with words of encouragement, counsel 
and warning. 

Long years ago, under a tiny portrait of myself as a child, 
she wrote in her Bible : 

Nor shall I leave thee wholly. I shall be 
An evening thought, a morning dream to thee, 
A silence in thy life, when through the night 
The bell strikes, or the sun with sinking light 
Smites all the empty windows. As there sprout 
Daisies and dimpling tufts of violets out 
Among the grass where some corpse lies asleep, 
So round my life, when I lie buried deep 
A thousand little tender thoughts shall spring, 
A thousand gentle memories wind and cling. 

She has indeed " not left me wholly." 

Through the Communion of Saints have we both realised 
that her presence can be more than " dream "or" memory," 
even a blessed and actual reality. 

Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. 



XII 

CONCERNING APPEARANCES OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY IN 
FULFILMENT OF A COMPACT 

An it please God to take me hence before thee, 
Tho' I were in the uttermost bounds of the earth 
Or foundered in the depths of the sea, 
To thee I will come. 

But after I am risen again I will go before you into Galilee. — 
Matt. xxvi. 32. 

MANY appearances of the Spiritual Body take place 
as the result of a definite compact or agreement. 
These appearances are of the greatest interest 
from every point of view. Perhaps the classical instance 
of modern times is the one contained in the memoirs of 
Lord Brougham. No one will lightly accuse the eminent 
Lord Chancellor of romancing, for he was one of the acutest 
and most practical lawyers that ever lived. 
He says in his memoirs : 

A most remarkable thing happened to me, so remarkable 
that I must tell the story from the beginning. After I left 

the High School I went with G , my most intimate friend, 

to attend the classes at the University. There was no 
divinity class, but we frequently, in our walks, discussed 
many grave subjects — among others, the immortality of 
the soul and a future state. This question and the 
possibility of the dead appearing to the living were subjects 
of much speculation, and we actually committed the folly 
of drawing up an agreement written with our blood to the 
effect that whichever of us died the first should appear to 
the other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of 
the " life after death." After we had finished our classes at the 

college G went to India, having got an appointment there 

in the Civil Service. He seldom wrote to me, and after the 
lapse of a few years I had nearly forgotten his existence. 
One day I had taken, as I have said, a warm bath, and while 
lying in it and enjoying the comfort of the heat I turned 
my head round, looking towards the chair on which I had 
171 



172 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

deposited my clothes, as I was about to get out of the bath. 

On the chair sat G , looking calmly at me. How I got out 

of the bath I know not, but on recovering my senses I found 
myself sprawling on the floor. The apparition or whatever 

it was that had taken the likeness of G had disappeared. 

This vision had produced such a shock that I had no inclina- 
tion to talk about it, or to speak about it even to Stewart, 
but the impression it made upon me was too vivid to be easily 
forgotten, and so strongly was I affected by it that I have 
here written down the whole history, with the date, December 
19th, and all the particulars which are now fresh before me. 
No doubt I had fallen asleep, and that the appearance pre- 
sented so distinctly before my eyes was a dream I cannot for 
a moment doubt, yet for years I had had no communication 

from G , nor had there been anything to recall him to my 

recollection. Nothing had taken place concerning our Swedish 

travels connected with G , or with India, or with anything 

relating to him or any member of his famly. I recollected 
quickly enough our old discussion and the bargain we had 
made. I could not discharge from my mind the impression 

that G must have died, and that his appearance to me 

was to be received by me as a proof of a future state. This 
was on December 19th, 1799. 

In October, 1862, Lord Brougham adds : 

I have just been copying out from my journal the account 
of this strange event. Certissima mortis imago. And now to 
finish the story begun about sixty years since. Soon after 
my return to Edinburgh there arrived a letter from India 

announcing G 's death, and stating that he died on 

December 19. 

The connection between the two events in Lord 
Brougham's case is unmistakable. 

We now come to a more striking and much more detailed 
case. Percipient and the " deceased " are here also separ- 
ated by a long stretch of the earth's surface, and there is 
a definite compact. Again we have a Spiritual manifesta- 
tion in a soldier family. 

It is supplied by Captain G. F. Russel Colt, of Gart- 



IN FULFILMENT OF A COMPACT 173 

sherrie, Coatbridge, N.B. (S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. i., page 
124), and runs as follows : — 

I was at home for my holidays, and residing with my father 
and mother, not here, but at another old family place in 
Midlothian, built by an ancestor in Mary Queen of Scots' time, 
called Inveresk House. My bedroom was a curious old room, 
long and narrow, with a window at one end and a door at the 
other. My bed was on the right of the window, looking 
towards the door. I had a very dear brother (my eldest 
brother, Oliver), lieutenant in the 7th Royal Fusiliers. He 
was about nineteen years old, and had at that time been some 
years before Sebastopol. I corresponded freely with him, 
and once when he wrote in low spirits, not being well, I said 
in answer that he was to cheer up, and that if anything did 
happen to him he must let me know by appearing to me in 
my room, where we had often, as boys together, sat at night 
and indulged in a surreptitious pipe and chat. This letter (I 
found subsequently) he received as he was starting to receive 
the sacrament from a clergyman, who has since related the 
fact to me. Having done this he went to the entrenchments 
and never returned, as in a few hours afterwards the storming 
of the Redan commenced. He, on the captain of his company 
falling, took his place and led the men bravely on. He had 
just led them within the walls, though already wounded in 
several places, when a bullet struck him on the right temple 
and he fell amongst heaps of others, where he was found in a 
sort of kneeling position (being propped up by the other dead 
bodies) thirty-six hours afterwards. His death took place, 
or rather he fell, though he may not have died immediately, 
on the 8th of September, 1855. 

That night I awoke suddenly and saw facing the window 
of my room by my bedside, surrounded by a bright sort of 
phosphorescent mist as it were (vide Chap. XVII.), my brother 
kneeling. I tried to speak, but could not, I buried my head 
in the bedclothes, not at all afraid (because we had all been 
brought up not to believe in ghosts or apparitions), but simply 
to collect my ideas, because I had not been thinking or dream- 
ing of him, and, indeed, had forgotten all about what I had 
written to him a fortnight ago. I decided that it must be 
fancy and the moonlight playing on a towel or something out 



174 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of place, but on my looking up there it was again looking 
lovingly, imploringly, and sadly at me. I tried to speak, but 
found myself tongue-tied. I could not utter a sound. I 
sprang out of bed, glanced out of the window and saw there 
was no moon, but it was very dark, and raining hard, by the 
sound against the panes. I turned, and still saw poor Oliver. 
I shut my eyes, walked through it, and reached the door of 
the room. As I turned the handle, before leaving the room, 
I looked once more back. The apparition turned round his 
head slowly, and again looked anxiously and lovingly at me, 
and I then saw, for the first time, a wound on the right temple 
with a red stream from it. His face was of a waxy pale tint, 
but transparent looking, and so was the reddish mark. But 
it is almost impossible to describe his appearance. I only 
know I shall never forget it. I left the room and went into a 
friend's room and lay on the sofa the rest of the night. I 
told him why. I told others in the house, but when I told my 
father he ordered me not to repeat such nonsense and especi- 
ally not to let my mother know. On the Monday morning he 
received a note from Sir Alexander Milne to say that the 
Redan was stormed, but no particulars. I told my friend to 
let me know if he saw the name among the killed and wounded 
before me. About a fortnight later he came to my bedroom, 
in his mother's house in Athole Crescent, Edinburgh, with a 
very grave face. I said, " I suppose it is to tell me the sad 
news I expect," and he said, " Yes." Both the colonel of 
the regiment and one or two officers who saw the body con- 
firmed the fact that the appearance was much according to 
my description, and the death wound was exactly where I 
had seen it. But none could say whether he actually died 
at the moment. His appearance, if so, must have been some 
hours after death, as he appeared to me a few minutes after 
two in the morning. Months later his small Prayer Book and 
the letter I had written to him were returned to Inveresk, 
found in the inner breast pocket of the tunic which he wore 
at his death. I have them now. 

Mr Colt mentioned several persons who could corroborate 
this narrative. We add the following letter from Mrs 
Hope, of Fermoy, sister of Mr Colt : — 

On the morning of September 8th, 1855, m y brother, Mr 



IN FULFILMENT OF A COMPACT 175 

Colt, told myself, Captain Ferguson, of the 42nd Regiment 
(since dead), and Major Borthwick, of the Rifle Brigade (who 
is living), and others that he had during the night awakened 
from sleep and seen, as he thought, my eldest brother, 
Lieutenant Oliver Colt, of the Royal Fusiliers (who was in 
the Crimea), standing between his bed and the door, that he 
saw he was wounded in more than one place — I remember 
he named the temple as one place — by bullet wounds, that he 
roused himself, rushed to the door with closed eyes, and looked 
back at the apparition, which stood between him and the bed. 
My father enjoined silence, lest my mother should be made 
uneasy, but shortly afterwards came the news of the fall of 
the Redan and my brother's death. Two years after, my 
husband, Colonel Hope, invited my brother to dine with 
him, the former still being a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers, 
the latter an ensign in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. While 
dining they were talking of my eldest brother. My husband 
was about to describe his appearance when found, when my 
brother described what he had seen, and to the astonishment 
of all present the description of the wounds tallied with the 
facts. My husband was my eldest brother's greatest friend, and 
was among those who saw the body as soon as it was found. 

Many other cases of apparitions following a compact on 
the part of two or more persons are on record. Some I give 
elsewhere. My own experience is limited to one case which, 
although there was no conclusive evidence of identity, is 
still sufficiently remarkable to bear narration. 

For several years before his death I was on friendly terms 
with that notable inventor and most forceful and virile 
personality, Sir Hiram Maxim. As is well known, he held 
strongly agnostic views concerning life after death and the 
spirit world, maintaining that there was no evidence for 
either one or the other. I never could bring myself to 
believe that such a clever man and such a powerful person- 
ality could really in his heart of hearts be convinced that 
nothing but annihilation and the blackness of darkness 
for ever awaited the human soul after death, and as may 
be imagined we had many a battle royal on this subject. 



176 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

After one of these, about two years before his " death," 
I said : " Well, Sir Hiram, you are older than I, and in the 
ordinary course of nature you will pass from this mortal 
life before I do. Now if you do, I challenge you, as an 
honest man, should you find that you have survived the 
experience we call death, to come to me and tell me so." 
He described my proposal as a " remarkable one," and 
then in his usual jocular, good-natured way— he was very 
fond of a joke — turned it off with words to the effect that 
he would " call and send up his card." Time passed, and 
the matter was not again mentioned by either of us. Sir 
Hiram " died " on the early morning of 24th November 
1916, aged seventy-seven. On Thursday, 30th November, 
my wife and I were sitting privately for psychic communica- 
tion when a personality began to manifest by very firm 
and forcible stamps. There was no clairvoyant or clair- 
audient manifestation such as has sometimes been experi- 
enced at our sittings, but just forcible, strong "stamps" 
upon the floor. 

Calling over the alphabet in the ordinary way the name 
of Sir Hiram Maxim was spelled out. I adjured him 
solemnly to say if it were really he. He replied that it 
was none other and that what I had said as to the survival 
of the soul was true. Then, to my astonishment, he said 
that the sum of £1000 was coming to me. I adjured him 
as to whether this were true, and he replied : " Yes." 
These messages were rapped out by most remarkable and 
forcible stamps upon the floor. 

A week afterwards, on. 8th December, we again sat, and 
on asking the name of the communicator a most humorous 
name was given by way of reply. I then asked the real 
name, and the name " Hiram " was rapped out by strong, 
forcible stamps upon the floor. These were characteristic 
of this personality at both sittings, while the humorous 
name first given was thoroughly characteristic of Sir Hiram's 
fondness for a joke. 



IN FULFILMENT OF A COMPACT 177 

I then asked if it were really the case that £1000 was 
coming to me, and he replied : " Yes," and that it was 
coming at no distant date. We had no further visit from 
this personality. The end of the year came, and the next 
year began to be well advanced, and I had almost forgotten 
the incident when one morning in July, 1917, I received a 
letter from one of the trustees of Miss Caroline Emma 
Spence, of Boston Spa, to the effect that she had left the sum 
of £1000 to me as vicar in conjunction with the wardens for 
the upkeep of Weston Church, and particulars of the legacy 
appeared in The Yorkshire Evening Post for 7th July 1917. 
Miss Spence died in February, 1917, nearly three months 
after the forecast of 30th November, and the legacy came 
as a complete surprise. 

Now, although there is no conclusive evidence of identity 
in this experience, such as I have been fortunate in ob- 
taining in many other cases, yet the fact that an event 
which then lay in the future, and of which we had 
no knowledge whatsoever, was foretold by a personality 
purporting to be Sir Hiram, and that this forecast was 
accurately fulfilled renders it exceedingly probable that the 
communicating personality gave his name truly and 
accurately also, and was none other than the veritable Sir 
Hiram. 

The following account is from a lady well known to 
Mr Myers, one of the officials of the S.P.R. Here the 
compact is made between the wife and her friend. Now 
sceptics try and explain away these matters by saying that 
the compact weighs on the mind of the individuals and 
produces an hallucination, but how this always coincides 
with the death they do not explain. The case to be de- 
scribed, however, knocks the bottom out of their argu- 
ment, because although the compact is made between two 
friends, the wife appears first to her daughter, then to 
the nurse, and lastly to the husband, the first two being 
unaware of the compact — and not to the friend at all. 



178 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

The sceptic's argument is even more effectually destroyed 
by the case (S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. ii., page 216) related 
by the Rev. A. Bellamy, whose wife had made a compact 
with the deceased. Mr Bellamy saw the Spiritual Body 
of the deceased, but the wife, who was sleeping in the 
same room, did not. 

But to resume, the first instance is contained in vol. v., 
page 440. 

The account comes from a lady known to Mr Myers, 
who prefers that her name should not be given. 

March, 1889. 
My mother died on the 24th of June, 1874, at a house 
called The Hunters Palace, Silima, Malta, where we were 
then living for her health. She had always a great fear of 
being buried alive, and extracted a promise from my father 
that wherever she died he should not allow her to be buried 
for a week, and I remember we had to get special permission, 
as it is the custom to bury within three days in a hot climate. 
The third day after death was the last time I saw her, and I 
then went into the room with my father and we cut off all her 
hair, which was very long and curly. I have no remembrance 
of being at all nervous or in the least frightened. On the 
seventh day after death she was buried, and it was on that 
night she appeared to me. I slept in a little dressing-room 
opening out of the larger nursery, which, like many old houses, 
had two steps leading into it. The smoking-room, where my 
father generally spent his evenings, was across the hall, so that 
it was not necessary for me to go through the nursery, where 
my two little brothers slept, to get out. On this particular 
evening the weather was stiflingly hot and intensely still. I 
had been put to bed earlier than usual and had no light in the 
room, the Venetian shutters were open as far as they would go, 
and the night was so beautiful that the room was quite light. 
The door into the nursery was only partially closed, and I 
could see the nurse's shadow as she leaned over her work, and 
I gazed at the shadow of her hand moving up and down with 
an irritating regularity until I fell asleep. I seemed to have 
been sleeping some time when I awoke, and turning over 
the other side towards the window saw my mother standing 



IN FULFILMENT OF A COMPACT 179 

at my bedside crying and wringing her hands. I had not been 
awake long enough to remember that she was dead, and ex- 
claimed quite naturally (for she often came in when I was 
asleep): "Why, dear, what's the matter?" and then, 
suddenly remembering, I screamed. The nurse sprang up 
from the next room, but on the top step flung herself on her 
knees and began to tell her beads and cry. My father at the 
same moment arrived at the opposite door, and I heard his 
sudden exclamation of " Julia darling." My mother turned 
towards him and then to me, wringing her hands again ; re- 
treated towards the nursery and was lost. The nurse after- 
wards declared that she distinctly felt something pass her. 
My father then ordered her out of the room, and telling me 
that I had only been dreaming stayed until I fell asleep. 

The next day, however, he told me that he, too, had seen 
the vision, and that he hoped to do so again, and that if she 
ever came to see me again I was not to be frightened, but to 
tell her papa wanted to speak to her, which I faithfully pro- 
mised to do, but she never appeared again. 

My father died just three years ago, so that I am now the 
only eye-witness left. My father's second wife has, however, 
heard the story from him and will sign this. 

L. H. 

M. S. H. 

Lady E , who was known to Mr Myers, writes of 

this as follows : — 

Mrs H was one of my most intimate friends for many 

years, and she and I made a compact that whosoever died first 
should, if possible, appear to the survivor. When I heard of 
her death (by telegraph, on the very day) I sat up all night 
hoping so see her, but saw and heard nothing. 

Afterwards her daughter told me that she and a Maltese 
nurse and her father had all seen my departed friend in the 
child's bedroom, she seeing the figure first, then the nurse, 
and the father rushing in and seeing it also. 

One thing to be noted here is that Lady E when on 

the watch for the appearance did not see it, and the same 
thing is testified to by Mr Mamtchich (page 133). Readers 



i8o MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of these pages who may be somewhat nervous may take 
heart of grace, if inclined to look over their shoulders. 
Our departed friends rarely frighten us, they are almost 
invariably harmless, and generally their appearance is con- 
solatory and assuring, but apart from this they rarely come 
to us when we are looking for them or expecting them, 
but usually take us unawares, and the appearance is 
generally so natural that not until it has vanished do we 
realise its nature and meaning. Then, like Achilles gazing 
after the shade of his friend Patroclus, we realise 

'Tis true, 'tis certain, man, tho' dead, retains 
Part of himself, the immortal mind remains, 
The form subsists, freed from the body's chains. 

I close this chapter with the experience of Mr R. 
D'Onston, and reproduced here by the kind permission 
of Miss Estelle Stead. 

To those instances of ghosts who have kept promises made 
in life to appear to those dear to them, may I add my own 
experience ? The incident occurred to me some years ago, 
and all the details can be substantiated. The date was August 
26th, 1867, at midnight. I was then residing in the neigh- 
bourhood of Hull, and held an appointment under the Crown 
which necessitated my repairing thither every day for a few 
hours' duty. My berth was almost a sinecure. 

I had a love affair with a girl in Hull. I will call her Louise. 
She was young, beautiful, and devoted to me. On the night 
of the 26th of August we took our last walk together, and a 
few minutes before midnight paused on a wooden bridge 
running across a kind of canal, locally termed a " drain." 
We paused on the bridge, listening to the swirling of the 
current against the wooden piles, and waiting for the stroke 
of midnight to part for ever. In the few minutes' interval she 
repeated, sotto voce, Longfellow's Bridge, the words of which 
" I stood on the bridge at midnight," seemed terribly appro- 
priate. After nearly twenty-five years I can never hear that 
piece recited without feeling a deathly chill and the whole 



IN FULFILMENT OF A COMPACT 181 

scene of two souls in agony again arising before me. Well ! 
midnight struck, and we parted ; but Louise said : ' ' Grant me 
one favour, the only one that I shall ever ask you on this 
earth : promise to meet me here twelve months to-night at 
this same hour." I demurred at first, thinking it would be 
bad for both of us, and only reopen partially healed wounds. 
At last, however, I consented, saying : " Well, I will come if 
I am alive ! " but she said : " Say alive or dead ! " I said : 
" Very well then, we will meet, dead or alive." 

The next year I was on the spot a few minutes before the 
time ; and punctual to the stroke of midnight, Louise arrived. 
By this time, I had begun to regret the arrangement I had 
made ; but it was of too solemn a nature to be put aside. I 
therefore kept the appointment, but said that I did not care 
to renew the compact. Louise, however, persuaded me to 
renew it for one more year, and I consented, much against my 
will ; and we again left each other, repeating the same formula : 
" Dead or alive." 

The next year after that passed rapidly for me until the 
first week in July, when I was shot dangerously in the thigh by 
a fisherman named Thomas Piles, of Hull, a reputed smuggler. 
A party of four of us had hired his io-ton yawl to go yachting 
round the Yorkshire coast, and amuse ourselves by shooting 
sea-birds amongst the millions of them at Flamborough Head. 
The third or fourth day out I was shot in the right thigh by 
the skipper Piles ; and the day after, one and a quarter ounce 
of No. 2 shot were cut out therefrom by the coastguard surgeon 
at Bridlington Quay (whose name I forget for the moment), 
assisted by Dr Alexander Mackay at the Black Lion Hotel. 
The affair was in all the papers at the time, about a column of 
it appearing in The Eastern Morning News, of Hull. 

As soon as I was able to be removed (two or three weeks) I 
was taken home, where Dr Kelburne King, of Hull, attended 
me. The day — and the night — (the 26th August) came. I 
was then unable to walk without crutches, and that for only a 
short distance, so had to be wheeled about in a Bath chair. 
The distance to the trysting place being rather long, and the 
time and circumstances being very peculiar, I did not avail 
myself of the services of my usual attendant, but specially 
retained an old servant of the family, who frequently did 
confidential commissions for me, and who knew Miss Louise 
well. We set forth " without beat of drum," and arrived at the 



182 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

bridge about a few minutes to midnight. I remember that it 
was a brilliant starlight night, but I do not think that there 
was any moon, at all events, at that hour. " Old Bob," as he 
was always affectionately called, wheeled me to the bridge, 
helped me out of the Bath chair, and gave me my crutch. I 
walked on to the bridge, and leaned my back against the white 
painted top rail, then lighted my briar-root, and had a com- 
fortable smoke. 

I was very much annoyed that I had allowed myself to be 
persuaded to come a second time, and determined to tell 
" Louise " positively that this should be the last meeting. So, 
if anything, it was in rather a sulky frame of mind that I 
awaited Louise. Just as the quarters before the hour began 
to chime I distinctly heard the " clink, clink," of the little 
brass heels, which she always wore, sounding on the long 
nagged causeway, leading for 200 yards up to the bridge. As 
she got nearer I could see her pass lamp after lamp in rapid 
succession, while the strokes of the large clock at Hull 
resounded through the stilly night. 

At last the patter, patter of the tiny feet sounded on the 
woodwork of the bridge, and I saw her distinctly pass under 
the lamp at the farther end — it was only twenty yards wide, 
and I stood under the lamp at my side. When she got close 
to me I saw that she had neither hat nor cape on, and con- 
cluded that she had taken a cab to the farther end of the 
flagged causeway, and (it being a very warm night) had left 
her wraps in the cab, and for purposes of effect had come the 
short distance in evening dress. 

" Clink, clink," went the brass heels, and she seemed about 
passing me, when I, suddenly urged by an impulse of affection, 
stretched out my arms to receive her. She passed through 
them, intangible, impalpable, and as she looked at me I dis- 
tinctly saw her lips move, and form the words : " Dead or 
alive." I even heard the words, but not with my outward 
ears, with something else, some other sense — what I know 
not. I felt startled, but not afraid, until a moment afterwards, 
then my blood seemed turned to ice. Recovering myself with 
an effort, I shouted out to " Old Bob," who was safely en- 
sconced with the Bath chair in a nook out of sight round the 
corner. " Bob, who passed you just now ? " In an instant 
the old Yorkshireman was by my side. " Ne'er a one passed 
me, sir ! " " Nonsense, Bob," I replied, " I told you that I 



IN FULFILMENT OF A COMPACT 183 

was coming to meet Miss Louise, and she just passed me on 
the bridge, and must have passed you, because there's nowhere 
else she could go ! You don't mean to tell me you didn't see 
her ? " The old man replied, solemnly : " Maister Ros, 
there's something uncanny aboot it. I heerd her come on the 
bridge, and off it, I'd knaw them clicketty heels onywhere ; 
but I'm henged, sir, if she passed me. I'm thinking we'd 
better gang." And " gang " we did ; and it was the small 
hours of the morning (getting daylight) before we left off 
talking over the affair, and went to bed. 

The next day I made inquiries from Louise's family about 
her, and ascertained that she had died in Liverpool three 
months previously, being apparently delirious for a few hours 
before her death, and our parting compact evidently weighing 
on her mind, as she kept repeating " Dead or alive ! Shall I 
be there ? " to the utter bewilderment of her friends, who 
could not divine her meaning, being of course entirely unaware 
of our agreement. 



XIII 

INDICATIONS OF CONTINUED KNOWLEDGE OF AND INTEREST 
IN TERRENE AFFAIRS SHOWN BY THE DEPARTED 

And behold there talked with him two men which were Moses 
and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he 
should shortly accomplish at Jerusalem. — Luke ix. 30, 31. 

And he said, Who art thou, Lord ? And the Lord said, I am 
Jesus whom thou persecutest. And he trembling and astonished 
said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? And the Lord said, 
Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou 
must do. — -Acts ix. 5, 6. 

And when they were come over against Mysia they essayed to 
go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not. — Acts 
xvi. 7 (Revised Version).* 

And I saw him saying unto me make haste and get thee quickly 
out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concern- 
ing me. — Acts xxii. 18. 

Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. — ■ 
Matthew xxviii. 20. 

THE great majority of mankind have ever found it 
impossible to believe that the change we call death 
is a plunge in the waters of Lethe where all things 
are forgotten. True some have taught it, in strange 
doctrines, either of immediate annihilation or of reincarna 
tion. Virgil is tinged with the latter belief, as is shown 
in this passage of the .Eneid : 

* This intervention in Paul's plan has usually been ascribed by 
the Church to the " Holy Ghost," but the real meaning of this re- 
markable passage has long been obscured by an omission in the Greek 
text. The full text reads : To irvevp,a I-qcrov, the Spirit of Jesus. 

The immediate personal intervention of Jesus in Paul's plan is 
thus here clearly indicated (as on other occasions), but whether by 
the direct voice or by open vision as in Acts ix., xii., and xviii., 
it is impossible to say, and this is the more evident from what is 
related in Acts xxiii. 9, for there we read that " the Lord said unto 
Paul in the night by a vision, be not afraid, but speak and hold 
not thy peace, for I am with thee." 

That Jesus after his " death " followed Paul and the other 

184 



CONTINUED TERRENE INTERESTS 185 

Whole droves of minds are by the driving God, 
Compelled to drink the deep Lethean flood 
In large forgetful draughts, to steep the cares 
Of their past labours and their irksome years, 
That unremembering of its former pain, 
The soul may suffer mortal flesh again. 

Wordsworth conveys the same idea : 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar. 

The rank materialists with their doctrines of annihila- 
tion we have with us to-day, while the gloomy beliefs of 
many who call themselves Christians, but who vehemently 

apostles in their missionary wanderings, and frequently intervened 
to guide and help them, is plainly shown by New Testament records. 

It is certain that other passages referring to the intervention of 
or influence from the " Holy Ghost," are really records of messages 
or influences from or of events brought about by, God or the Spirit 
of God (who is the same being and consequently the same person 
as God, just as a man and the spirit of that man are the same man) 
through the ministry or agency of spiritual beings ( f different 
degrees of exaltation. That this method was constantly em- 
ployed is easily proved by reference both to the Old and New Testa- 
ments. A case especially showing how God, or the Spirit of God 
(God is spirit/ — -John iv. 24) influences the minds and actions of 
men and rules the world of men by the use of intermediary agents 
or messenger spirits, is to be found in Daniel x. 11 and 20, where 
messenger spirits of high degree are shown in the act of influencing 
the mind of the Prince of Persia. The influence of the " Spirit of 
God " upon men personally or upon the Church collectively is 
the influence of God brought to bear upon the minds and actions of 
men through good intermediary messenger spirits. Now Christ tells 
the Jews that they have " neither heard God's voice at any time 
nor seen his shape " (John v. 37). The Apostle John says : " No 
man hath seen God at any time " (John i. 18 ; 1 John iv. 12). The 
Apostle Paul states that God is a being " whom no man hath seen 
or can see " (1 Tim. vi. 16) ; and a careful consideration of the re- 
corded instances of spiritual manifestation in the Old and New Testa- 
ments, together with the above quotations, makes it clear that God 
does not manifest in propria persona to man, but through subsidiary 
spiritual agents. 

In Rev. i. 4 seven spirits are mentioned as before he throne : or 



186 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

desire ages of oblivion, are but one step removed from the 
heathen doctrine of Lethe. From the nature of the case 
neither the doctrines of annihilation or reincarnation can 
satisfy the mind of man. Both strike equally at the per- 
sistence of the Ego and the survival of conscious personality, 
and without these existence has no meaning. There are 
many experiences on record showing that the departed, 
alive in the Spiritual Body, neither lose their affection for 
loved ones still in the mortal body, nor do they cease to 

immediate presence of God, and the constant use of messenger 
spirits of all degrees of exaltation, from Christ (Rev. i. i) and the 
archangels (Dan. x. 13) to ordinary discarnate human beings (Rev. 
xxii. 9 ; Dan. x. 16) is one of the most marked features of Holy Writ. 
These spirit messengers proceed, or are sent, from God, either directly 
(Daniel ix. 20-23, x. 11-12 ; Acts xii. 5, 11), or indirectly, the com- 
mission being sometimes passed on through several agents (Rev. i. 1; 
xxii. 16, 9 ; Acts ix. 17), and each such good spirit, guide, teacher, 
or messenger, is a " spirit of truth" {irvevfia tt)$ a\rjdeias — John xvi. 
13, 14; xiv. 17, 26). 

God and the Spirit of God are one and the same being, and conse- 
quently, the same person, the Father, the Creator, the Lord and Giver 
of Life. Of the manifestation of the Spirit of God as a personality dis- 
tinct from God the Father, the Creator, there is not a particle of proof 
in the New or Old Testaments. The phenomena of the Day of Pentecost 
are certainly no such proof, but indicate the presence of, and control 
of the disciples by, departed spirits of many different nationalities. 

It is necessary at this point to note that God the Father, the 
Creator, the Almighty, being himself a Spirit — -or Spirit (John iv. 24) 
— the idea of the " Holy Ghost " as a spirit Third Person of the God- 
head distinct in personality from God the Father, the Creator, the 
Great Spirit, is wholly superfluous. The " Holy Ghost " is not 
another spirit personality of the Godhead, but a term used to indicate 
those manifestations of good or holy spiritual influence, or power, 
exercised by God, the Great Spirit, through various intermediary 
spirit personalities. 

This the early Church did not clearly perceive, the result being the 
introduction of the dogma of the Third Person. In like manner the 
early Church, not understanding the phenomenon of Materialisation, 
adopted the totally erroneous doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh. 

When the arisen Christ says : " Receive ye the Holy Ghost " (John 
xx. 22) ; when it is stated that " they were all filled with the Holy 
Ghost" (Acts ii. 14) ; when Ananias is sent by the arisen Christ to 
Paul " that he might receive his sight and be filled with the Holy 
Ghost " (Acts ix. 17) ; or when Peter, John, or Paul place their hands 



CONTINUED TERRENE INTERESTS 187 

take an interest in terrene affairs. Death is merely an 
event in life, not a cessation of existence, nor a mental 
oblivion, life and activity being taken up and resumed in 
the spirit world practically at the point where they are 
laid down here. This is just what we should expect from 
a perusal of the account of Christ's resurrection life. The 
narrative given in the last chapter by Mr Mamtchich shows 
that Palladia undoubtedly anticipated and took an interest 
in his approaching marriage just as — -I say it with all re- 
verence — Moses and Elias were heard to manifest a keen 

on the converts " and the Holy Ghost " came upon them and they 
spake with tongues and prophesied " (Acts viii. 1, xix. 6) ; when 
the Holy Ghost or Comforter is described as " guiding," " teaching," 
" testifying" (John xiv.-xvi.); when Peter says that the prophets 
" spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost " (2 Peter i. 21) ; 
it is evident that the influence or power of God the Great Spirit, as 
manifested in the spiritual gifts, and conveyed through the agency 
of good intermediary spirit personalities, is here indicated, and not the 
coming, manifestation, or reception, of another spirit personality of 
the Godhead distinct from that of God the Father. 

These gifts of the Holy Ghost are the " spiritual gifts " mentioned 
by Paul in 1 Cor. xii. which include among others (1) the " gift of 
healing " ; (2) the gift for various strong psychic phenomena — " the 
working of miracles " {evapyq/naTa 8wa.fj.ewv — manifestations or 
workings of powers) — that is, results produced by the active exercise 
of " supernatural " or psychic powers. For dwafus in this sense, 
cf. Matt. vii. 22; xi. 20; Mark vi. 14); (3) clairvoyance, "the dis- 
cerning of spirits " (diaKpureis — -acts of discerning or distinguishing); 
(4) the power to foretell events — "prophecy"; (5) speaking in 
foreign languages unknown to the speaker (cf. Acts ii. 6) — " divers 
kinds of tongues " ; (6) interpretation of languages unknown to the 
speaker — " interpretation of tongues " ; and they are all due to the 
presence of good spiritual beings — -the arisen Christ, archangels, angels 
and the arisen spirits of the departed (Luke xx. 30; Rev. xxii. 9) — ■ 
acting as the agents and messengers of God (Heb. i. 14), influencing 
the minds of, conveying information to, or producing manifestations 
through those human beings who receive the spiritual gifts (Ezekiel 
ii. 2; Daniel x. 10; Acts xxii. 18). 

The scheme of spiritual being and manifestation shown us in the 
Old and New Testaments is (1) God (the Spirit of God), who is the 
Father, the Creator, the Lord and Giver of Life ; (2) Christ ; (3) the 
archangels ; (4) the angels ; (5) human angels, the arisen spirits of 
the departed. The "Holy Ghost" is the good or holy spiritual 
influence and power of (1) exercised through (2), (3), (4) and (5). 



188 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

interest in Christ's approaching death at Jerusalem. There 
are many cases in which the apparition not only shows 
a knowledge of the past and of the present, but even 
predicts the future. Such predictions, often accurately 
fulfilled, kill the subjective and subliminal theories as 
explanations of these apparitions. Here is a case very 
well attested, and of a nature that appeals as forcibly to 
the stranger as to the immediate percipient. It is taken 
from a paper by Mr Myers, in S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. viii., 
page 200. 

On February 2, Michael Conley, a farmer, living near Iowa, 
Chicksaw County, was found dead in an outhouse at Jefferson 
House. He was carried to Coroner Hoffman's morgue, 
where, after the inquest, his body was prepared for conveyance 
to his late home. The old clothes which he wore were covered 
with filth from the place where he was found, and they were 
thrown outside the morgue on the ground. 

His son came from Iowa and took the body home. When 
he reached there and one of the daughters was told that her 
father was dead, she fell in a swoon, in which she remained 
several hours. When at last she was brought from the swoon 
she said, " Where are father's old clothes ? He has just 
appeared to me dressed in a white shirt, black clothes, and 
satin slippers, and told me that after leaving home he sewed 
a large roll of bills inside his grey shirt with a piece of my red 
dress, and the money is still there." In a short time she 
fell into another swoon, and when out of it demanded that 
somebody go to Dubuque and get the clothes. She was deathly 
sick, and is so yet. 

The entire family considered it only an hallucination, but 
the physician advised them to get the clothes as it might set 
her mind at rest. The son telephoned Coroner Hoffman , asking 
if the clothes were still in his possession. He looked and 
found them in the back yard, although he had supposed they 
were thrown in the vault as he had intended. He answered 
that he had them still, and on being told that the son would 
come to get them they were wrapped in a bundle. 

The young man arrived last Monday afternoon, and told 
Coroner Hoffman what his sister had said. Mr Hoffmann 



CONTINUED TERRENE INTERESTS 189 

admitted that the lady had described the identical burial 
garb, even to the slippers, although she never saw him after 
death, and none of the family ever saw more than his face through 
the coffin lid. Curiosity being aroused, they took the grey 
shirt from the bundle, and within the bosom found a large roll 
of bills sewn up with a piece of red cloth. The young man 
said his sister had a red dress exactly like it. The stitches 
were large and irregular, and looked to be those of a man. The 
son wrapped up the garments and took them home with him 
yesterday morning, filled with wonder at the supernatural 
revelation made to his sister, who is at present lingering between 
life and death. 

The Herald, Dubuque, Iowa. 
March 11, 1891. 
R. Hodgson. 
Dear Sir, — I am in receipt of your favour of the 6th instant. 
I happened to be in the coroner's office while the son was 
still there with the clothes a few minutes after the money was 
found. The published account is not exaggerated in the 
least. 

H. S. Sill. 

M. M. Hoffman, Dubuque, Iowa, 18th March 1891, writes 
to Dr Hodgson as follows : — 

In regard to the statement of the Dubuque Herald, of 
February 19, about the Conley matter, it is more than true 
by my investigation. I laughed and did not believe in the 
matter when I first heard of it until I satisfied myself by in- 
vestigating and seeing what I did. 

H. M. Hoffman, County Coroner. 

Here we find that the apparition communicates two sets 
of facts, one of them only known to strangers, and of course 
not known to himself during his mortal life (the dress in 
which he was buried), and one of them known only to 
himself (the existence of the inside pocket and the money 
therein). Such cases utterly destroy the telepathic and 
subliminal theories. 



igo MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

This communication could only have come from the 
deceased, no other person being aware of the inner pocket 
and the money. If it be objected that these things are too 
trivial* to form the subject of a communication from the 
other life we can only reply that this is simply a precon- 
ception on our part. How do we know that they are too 
trivial? There is abundant evidence that orthodox and 
conventional ideas of the nature and occupation of the 
future life require a thorough revision. Christ tells us 
that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Heavenly 
lather's knowledge, and that even the very hairs of our 
head are all numbered. It is certain that for some time 
after death the affairs of the past life often loom largely in 
the thoughts of those in the Spiritual Body, especially when 
these affairs bear closely upon the well-being of some loved 
one. 

Here is a striking account of the obtaining of informa- 
tion by psychic means (probably from the spirit of the de- 
ceased person) relative to earthly affairs. It is narrated by 
Lord Crawford and Balcarres (the Master of Lindsay), in 
his evidence before the Dialectical Society, and is totally 
destructive of all anti-spiritual theories : 

A friend of mine was very anxious to find the will of his 
grandmother, who had been dead forty years, but could not 
find even the certificate of her death. I went with him to the ; 
Marshalls' and we had a sitting. Soon the communicating • 
signals came. My friend then asked his questions mentally, i 
We were told that the will had been drawn by a man named 
William Walker, who lived in Whitechapel ; the name of the i 
street and the number of the house were given. We went to 
Whitechapel and found the man, and subsequently, through . 
his aid, obtained a copy of the draft. He was unknown to us 
and had not always lived in that locality, for he had once seen 
better days. The psychic could not possibly have known 
anything about the matter, and even if she had her knowledge 

* Vide postea. 5 



CONTINUED TERRENE INTERESTS 191 

would have been of no avail, as all the questions were mental 
ones. 

The following account of two experiences connected 
together in a remarkable way are sent by the Princess di 
Cristoforo, who was personally known to Mr Myers, and 
is the wife of Colonel Wickham, of 7 Comeragh Road, W., 
the latter also witnessing to the correctness of the facts 
set forth. In these two cases the apparition is seen by 
more than one person (S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. viii. 226). 

A friend of mine, an officer in the Gordon Highlanders, was 
severely wounded in the knee at Tel-el-Kebir. 

His mother was a great friend of mine, and when the Carthage 
hospital ship brought him to Malta, by dint of much entreaty 
his mother and I were allowed to go and nurse him. A few 
days before the end I pinned the Order of the Osmanli on 
the front of the poor dying boy's nightgown. I sat in an arm- 
chair by his bed all night, as he slept better holding my hand. 
One night, January 4th, 1886, no immediate change being 
apprehended, his mother made me go home to have a night's 
rest. He had been in a kind of lethargy for some hours, 
and as the doctor said he would probably sleep, being under 
the effects of morphia, until the next morning, I consented 
to go, intending to return at daybreak, so that he should 
find me there when he awoke. About three o'clock that 
night my son, who was sleeping in my room, woke me with 
a cry of "Mamma! there is Mr Blake." I started up; it 
was quite true. He floated through the room about half a 
foot from the floor, smiling at me as he disappeared through 
the window. Half-an-hour afterwards a man came to tell 
me that Mr Blake had died at three o'clock and I must go to 
his mother, who had sent for me. She told me that he had 
been half conscious just before he died, and was feeling about 
for my hand, after pressing hers and that of his old soldier 
servant, who had remained with him to the last. I have 
never forgiven myself for going home that night. 

The writer's son, who was, she informs us, nine years old 
at the time of the occurrence, also signs the account. 



i 9 2 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

The Princess's next experience is collective, visual, and 
tactile. 

In the summer of 1886 I was living at Stuttgart, having 
taken my family there for educational reasons. We were 
all seated at the tea-table talking and laughing, when I felt 
an extraordinary sensation as if someone were leaning heavily 
on my shoulders. I tried to turn round, but literally couldn't 
do so. Looking across the table I found my daughter's eyes 
fixed and staring with a scared look in them — at the back of 
where I sat. I said nothing at the time, but when we were 

alone in the drawing-room I asked L what had made her 

stare beyond me so. 

" I saw Mr Abbott and Mr Blake standing one on either 
side of you ; they had one of their hands on each of your 
shoulders, and they changed places once," she replied. 

" Were they sad looking ? " 

" No, they were both smiling down on you. I could not 
see lower than their waists clearly, these seemed to be a kind 
of haze, but their faces were quite clear." 

Both these young men appeared to me previously (see the 
former account). They were very much attached to me and 
my little daughter. 

Miss Wickham has given verbally and in writing a com- 
pletely concordant account. 

The famous Lord Chancellor Erskine had the following 
experience. He says, in the account of it : 

When I was a young man I had been for some time absent 
from Scotland. On the morning of my arrival in Edinburgh, 
as I was coming out from a bookshop, I met our old family 
butler. He looked greatly changed, pale, wan and shadowy. 
' ' Eh, old boy ! " I said, ' ' what brings you here ? ' ' He replied : 
"To meet your honour and to solicit your interference with 
my lord to recover a sum due to me, which the steward at the 
last settlement did not pay." 

Struck by his looks and manner, I bade him follow me to 
the bookseller's shop into which I stepped back, but when I 
turned round to speak to him he had vanished. I remembered 
that his wife carried on some little trade in the Old Town, 



CONTINUED TERRENE INTERESTS 193 

and I remembered the house. Having made it out. I found 
the old woman in widow's mourning. Her husband had been 
dead some months, and had told her on his deathbed that my 
father's steward had wronged him of some money, but that 
when Master Tom returned he would see her righted. This I 
promised to do, and shortly after fulfilled my promise. The 
impression of this on me was indelible. 

Several of the instances quoted in other chapters bear 
especially on this manifestation of a continued interest 
in terrene affairs. 

My own experience bears this contention out to the full, 
Several of my own deceased relatives have returned to 
me in the presence of other witnesses and have given me 
detailed and particular information not only fully estab- 
lishing their identity but also showing continued knowledge 
of and interest in the affairs of this earth life. I have often 
been present when similar proof has been given to others 
also, all of which will be narrated in due course. 

Undoubtedly many veridical cases never see the light, 
as they concern affairs too sacred or too private to be 
published, and in addition to this there is thejear of being 
laughed at, a fear which is now, fortunately, rapidly dis- 
appearing as people become more enlightened and more 
intelligently acquainted with the reality of these phenomena. 



XIV 



EVIDENCE THAT THE SPIRITUAL BODY OFT LINGERS FOR A 
TIME ROUND THE SCENES OF EARTHLY LIFE 

Being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things per- 
taining unto the kingdom of God. — Acts i. 3. 

That he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve : 
After that, of about five hundred brethren at once ; of whom the 
greater part remain unto this present, . . . 

After that, he was seen of James ; then of all the apostles.* 
And last of all he was seen by me also, . . . — 1 Cor. xv. 5-8. 

It may be, burdened with dark secrets, harassed by inexpiated 

crimes, 
A wretched soul hath now and then clung fiercely to its birthplace. 
It may be that either of a pair long joined in happy marriage, 
Hovereth in deep love about the other, visiting its mate. 
It may be, doting on her child, a mother's ghost hath lingered 
To guard him, angel like, from some perilous evil nigh. 

Tup per. 

THE manifestation of Christ to his apostles was 
complete and perfect in its fullness and power. It 
was the unveiling and bringing out into the full 
light, of " life and immortality." 

These appearances of Christ were not confined to one 
spot, but took place in localities widely separated from 
each other, as, for instance, Jerusalem, Galilee, Emmaus, 
Damascus, Corinth and Patmos, and while the greater 
number were comprised within a period of six weeks, a 
few were extended over a period of many years. 

Now we find a reflection of this wonderful manifestation 
of the Redeemer to us in the manifestations of the Spiritual 
Body. 

The appearances of Christ and those of ordinary men are 
the same in this, that they are evidences of Human Sur- 

* After Paul's martyrdom, Jesus was again seen by the Apostle 
John, in the Isle of Patmos (Rev. i. 9, 18), towards the end of the first 
century. Thus a period of about sixty years is covered by the Lord's 
appearances to his apostles. 

I94 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 195 

vival, and the long-drawn-out sojourning of the Lord 
with the children of men, after his resurrection from the 
dead, has its reflection and parallel in cases where the 
Spiritual Body of one departed has been repeatedly seen 
over a period of many years. 

There are many instances where the departed are seen 
in places never visited by them during their natural life, 
proving conclusively that the cause lies in no local picture, 
photographed, as it were, upon the walls and stones, as 
some would have us believe, but rather in a living presence 
that can pass from room to room, from place to place, and 
appear from year to year. 

Instances of this are seen in the apparition of my Aunt 
Leah at Weston, where she had never been during her 
mortal life, and in the remarkable experience which took 
place in our own family (page 92). Here the Spiritual 
Body was seen by different persons in two separate places, 
which were twenty miles apart. In one of these the 
deceased had never been during her earthly life. 

Again, the appearances of Palladia (page 131) extend 
over many years, and were seen at places widely apart, 
where she had never previously been. In Proceedings 
S.P.R., vol. v., page 442, is a well-attested case in which 
the departed wife is seen no less than seven times by four 
different persons in two separate houses. These instances 
kill the local picture theory completely. 

There are many instances of the frequenting of the 
scenes of earthly life recorded by the S.P.R. In some 
cases this frequenting extends over many years, and there 
are many witnesses. It is to be noticed that these appear- 
ances are never harmful, and often distinctly consolatory, 
as in the case so carefully recorded by General Campbell 
(Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v., 477). 

The following narrative will suffice to illustrate this 
frequenting of old familiar scenes during what one may 
term the early days of life in the Spiritual Body. 



196 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

This account is one of the fullest and most remarkable 
extant, aU the persons were well known to Mr Myers, and 
the matter has been the subject of the most thorough 
and careful investigation by the Society for Psychical 
Research. The name Morton has been substituted for 
the real name, but the initials and the other names are 
correct ones. Miss Morton was at the time preparing 
for the medical profession, and was a lady of scientific 
training and of strong nerve, as is evident from the way 
she endeavoured to lay hold of the figure and to speak 
to it. 

The record is to be found in Proceedings S.P.R., 
vol. viii., pages 311-329, and runs as follows : — 

The house is a typical modern residence, square and common- 
place in appearance. 

The whole is in thoroughly good repair, neither rats nor 
mice having been seen in the house, and there are no owls in 
the neighbourhood to account for any of the sounds heard. 
It was built about the year i860 on a site occupied by a market 
garden. "While yet unfinished it was bought from the builders 

by the first occupant, Mr S , an Anglo-Indian, who lived 

in it for about sixteen years. During this time, in the month 
of August, year uncertain, he lost his wife, to whom he 
was passionately attached, and to drown his grief took to 
drinking. 

About two years later Mr S married again. His second 

wife was a Miss I. H . Their married life was embittered 

by quarrels frequently resulting in violent scenes. The chief 
subjects of dispute were the management of the children of the 
first Mrs S and the possession of her jewellery, to pre- 
serve which, for the children, Mr S had some of the boards 

in the small front sitting-room taken up by a local carpenter 
and the jewels inserted in the receptacle so formed. Finally 

a few months before Mr S 's death on the 14th July 1876, 

his wife separated from him. She was not present at the 
time of his death, nor, as far as is known, was she ever at the 
house afterwards. 

She died on the 23rd of September 1878, and her remains 
were brought back to the town to be interred in a churchyard 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 197 

about a quarter of a mile from the house in which she had 
lived. 

After Mr S 's death the house was bought by Mr L , 

an elderly gentleman. Mr L died rather suddenly within 

six months of going into the house, and it remained empty 
for some years — probably four. 

In April, 1882, the house was let by the representatives of 

the late Mr L to Captain Morton. The family consists of 

Captain Morton, his wife, a married daughter, Mrs K — ■ — , 
four unmarried daughters and two sons. 

My father took the house in March, 1882, none of us having 
then heard of anything unusual about the house. We moved 
in towards the end of April, and it was not until the following 
June that I first saw the apparition. 

I had gone up to my room, but was not yet in bed, when 
I heard someone at the door, and went to it thinking that it 
might be my mother. On opening the door I saw no one, but 
on going a few steps along the passage I saw the figure of a 
tall lady dressed in black standing at the head of the stairs. 
After a few moments she descended the stairs, and I followed 
for a short distance, curious who it could be. I had only a 
small piece of candle and it suddenly burnt itself out, and 
being unable to see more I went back to my room. 

The figure was that of a tall lady, dressed in black of a 
soft woollen material judging from the slight sound in moving. 
The face was hidden in a handkerchief held in the right hand. 
This is all I noticed then, but on further occasions when I 
was able to observe her more closely, I saw the upper part of 
the left side of the forehead, and a little of the hair above. 
Her left hand was nearly hidden by her sleeve and a fold in 
her dress. As she held it down a portion of a widow's cuff was 
visible on both wrists, so that the whole impression was that 
of a lady in widow's weeds. During the next two years — 
from 1882 to 1884 — I saw the figure about half-a-dozen times, 
first at long intervals and afterwards at shorter, but I only 
mentioned these appearances to one friend who did not speak 
of them to anyone. 

During this period as far as we know there are only three 
appearances to anyone else. 

1. In the summer of 1882 to my sister Mrs K when 

the figure was thought to be that of a Sister of Mercy who 
had called at the house, and no further curiosity was aroused. 



198 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

She was coming down the stairs rather late for dinner at 6.30, 
it being then quite light, when she saw the figure cross the 
hall in front of her and pass into the drawing-room. She then 
asked the rest of us already seated at dinner : " Who was the 
Sister of Mercy whom I have just seen going into the drawing- 
room ? " She was told there was no such person, and the 
servant was sent to look, but the drawing-room was empty and 

she was sure no one had come in. Mrs K persisted that 

she had seen a tall figure in black with some white about it, 
but nothing further was thought of the matter. 

2. In the autumn of 1883 it was seen by the housemaid 
about 10 p.m., she declaring that someone had got into the 
house, her description agreeing fairly with what I had seen, 
but as on searching, no one was found, her story received no 
credit. 

3. On or about December 18, 1883, it was seen in the drawing- 
room by my brother and another little boy. They were 
playing outside on the terrace when they saw the figure in 
the drawing-room close to the window, and ran to see who it 
could be that was crying so bitterly. They found no one in 
the drawing-room and the parlour-maid told them that no one 
had come into the house. 

After the first time I followed the figure several times down- 
stairs into the drawing-room, where she remained a variable 
time, generally standing to the right-hand side of the bow 
window. From the drawing-room she went along the passage 
towards the garden door where she always disappeared. 

The first time I spoke to her was on January 20, 1884, I 
opened the drawing-room door softly and went in, standing 
just by it. She came in, passed me and walked to the sofa 
and stood still there, so I went up to her and asked her if I 
could help her. She moved, and I thought she was going to 
speak, but she only gave a slight gasp and moved towards the 
door. Just by the door I spoke to her again, but she seemed 
as if she were quite unable to speak. She walked into the hall, 
then by the side door she seemed to disappear as before. 
In May and June, 1884, I tried some experiments, fastening 
strings with marine glue across the stairs at different heights 
from the ground — of which I give a more detailed account 
later on. 

I also attempted to touch her, but she always eluded me. 
It was not that there was nothing to touch, but that she always 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 199 

seemed to be beyond me, and if followed into a corner simply 
disappeared. During these two years the only noises I heard 
were those of slight pushes against my bedroom door accom- 
panied by footsteps, and if I looked out on hearing these sounds 
I invariably saw the figure. " Her footstep is very light, you 
can hardly hear it except on the linoleum, and then only like 
a person walking softly with thin boots on. " (Letter of January 
31, 1884.) The appearances during the next two months — 
July and August, 1884 — became much more frequent, indeed, 
they were then at their maximum, from which time they seemed 
gradually to have decreased, until now they seemed to have 
ceased. 

Of these two months I have a short record in a set of Journal 
letters written at the time to a friend. On July 21, I find the 
following account :— I went into the drawing-room where my 
father and sisters were sitting, about nine in the evening, and 
sat down on a couch close to the bow window. A few minutes 
after, as I sat reading, I saw the figure come in at the open 
door, cross the room, and take up a position close behind the 
couch where I was. I was astonished that no one else in the 
room saw her, as she was so very distinct to me. My youngest 
brother who had before seen her was not in the room. She 
stood behind the couch for about half-an-hour, and then as 
usual walked to the door. I went after her on the excuse of 
getting a book , and saw her pass along the hall until she came 
to the garden door, where she disappeared. I spoke to her 
as she passed the foot of the stairs, but she did not answer, 
although as before she stopped and seemed as though about to 
speak. On July 31, some time after I had gone to bed my 

second sister E , who had remained downstairs, came to 

me saying that someone had passed her on the stairs. I tried 
to persuade her that it was one of the servants, but next morn- 
ing found that it could not have been so, as none of them had 
been out of their rooms at that hour, and E — ■ — 's more detailed 
description tallied with what I had already seen. 

On the night of August 1 I again saw the figure. I heard 
the footsteps outside on the landing about 2 a.m. I got up at 
once and went outside. She was then at the end of the landing 
at the top of the stairs with her side view towards me. She 
stood there some minutes, then went downstairs, stopping 
again when she reached the hall below. I opened the drawing- 
room" door and she went in, walked across the room to the 



200 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

couch in the bow window, stayed there a little, then came 
out of the room, went along the passage and disappeared by 
the garden door. I spoke to her again, but she did not 
answer. 

On the night of August 2 the footsteps were heard by my 
three sisters and by the cook, all of whom slept on the top 

landing ; also by my married sister, Mrs K , who was 

sleeping on the floor below. They all said the next morning 
that they had heard them very plainly pass and repass their 
doors. The cook was a middle-aged and very sensible person. 
On my asking her the following morning if any of the servants 
had been out of their rooms the night before after coming up 
to bed, she told me that she had heard these footsteps before, 
and that she had seen the figure on the stairs one night when 
going down to the kitchen to fetch hot water after the servants 
had come to bed. She described it as a lady in widow's weeds, 
tall and slight, with her face hidden in her handkerchief held 
in her right hand. Unfortunately we have since lost sight of 
this servant ; and we cannot now trace her. She also saw 
the figure outside the kitchen windows on the terrace walk, 
she herself being in the kitchen, it was then about eleven in 
the morning, but having no note of the occurrence I cannot 
remember whether this apparition was subsequent to the one 
above mentioned. 

These footsteps are very characteristic, and are not at all 
like those of any of the people in the house, they are soft and 
rather slow though decided and even. My sisters would not 
go out on the landing after hearing them pass, nor would the 
servants, but each time when I have gone out I have seen the 
figure there. 

On August 5 I told my father about her and what we had 
seen and heard. He was much astonished, not having seen 
or heard anything himself at the time, neither had my mother, 
but she is slightly deaf and is an invalid. 

He made inquiries of the landlord (who then lived close by) 
as to whether he knew of anything unusual about the house, 
as he had himself lived in it for a short time, but he replied 
that he had only been there for three months and had never 
seen anything unusual. 

On August 6 a neighbour, General A , who lived opposite, 

sent his son to inquire after my married sister, as he had seen 
a lady crying in our orchard which is visible from the road. 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 201 

He had described her to his son, and afterwards to us, as a tall 
lady in black and a bonnet with a long veil, crying with a 
handkerchief up to her face. He did not know my sister by 
sight as she had only been with us a few days and had been 
out very little, but he knew she was in mourning for her baby 
son. My sister was not in the orchard that day at all, is rather 
short, and wore no veil. This was the second time that the 
figure had been mistaken for that of a real person, the outlines 
being very distinct and the whole appearance solid. 

The same evening this General A came over to our 

house, and we all took up various stations on the watch for 
the figure which, however, did not turn up. 

On the evening of August 1 1 we were sitting in the drawing- 
room with the gas lit but the shutters not shut, the light 

outside getting dark. My eldest sister Mrs K saw the 

figure outside looking in at the window. She stood there for 
some minutes, then walked to the end and back again, after 
which she seemed to disappear. She soon after came into the 
drawing-room, when I saw her, but my sister did not. The 

same evening my sister E saw her on the stairs as she 

came out of a room on the upper landing. 

The following evening, August 12, while coming up the 
garden I walked towards the orchard, when I saw the figure 
cross the orchard, go along the carriage drive in front of the 
house and in at the open side door, cross the hall and into 
the drawing-room, I following. She crossed the drawing-room 
and took up her usual position behind the couch in the bow 
window. My father came in soon after and I told him she was 
there. He could not see the figure, but went up to where I 
showed him she was. She then went swiftly round behind 
him, across the room, out of the door and along the hall, dis- 
appearing as usual near the garden door, we both following 
her. We looked out into the garden door, which my father 
had locked as he came through, but saw nothing of her. 

On August 12, about 8 p.m., and still quite light, my sister 

E was singing in the back room. I heard her stop 

abruptly, come out into the hall and call me. She said she 
had seen the figure in the drawing-room close behind her as 
she sat at the piano. I went back into the room with her 
and saw the figure in the bow window in her usual place. I 
spoke to her several times, but had no answer. She stood 
there for about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, then went 



202 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

across the room to the door and along the passage, disappear- 
ing in the same place by the garden door. My sister M then 

came in from the garden saying she had seen her coming up 
the kitchen steps outside. We all three went out into the 

garden when Mrs K called out from a window on the first 

story that she had just seen her pass across the lawn in front 
and along the carriage drive towards the 'orchard. This 
evening, then, altogether four people saw her. My father 
was then away and my youngest brother was out. 

On the morning of August 14 the parlourmaid saw her in 
the dining-room about 8.30 a.m., having gone into the room 
to open the shutters. The room is very sunny, and even with 
all the shutters closed quite tight it is quite light, the shutters 
not fitting well and letting sunlight through the cracks. She 
had opened one shutter, when on turning round she saw the 
figure cross the room. We were all on the look out for her 
that evening, but saw nothing, in fact, whenever we made 
arrangements to watch and were especially expecting her we 
never saw anything {vide page 180). This servant, who 
afterwards married, was interviewed by Mr Myers at her 
own house. 

On August 16 I saw the figure on the drawing-room balcony 
about 8.30 p.m. She did not afterwards come into the room 
as on former occasions. On looking out at the side door 
nothing could be seen. 

The gardener said he had seen the figure on the balcony 
that morning, early, about 6 o'clock. 

On August 19th, three days after, we all went to the seaside, 
and were away a month, leaving three servants in the house. 
When we came back they said they had heard footsteps and 
noises frequently, but as the stair carpets were up part of the 
time and the house empty, many of these noises were doubtless 
due to natural causes. The cook also spoke of seeing the 
figure in the garden, standing by a stone vase on the lawn 
behind the house. During the rest of that year and the 
following, 1885, the apparition was frequently seen through 
each year, especially during July, August and September. 
In these months the three deaths had taken place — viz. Mr 

S on July 14th, 1876; the first Mrs S in August; 

and the second Mrs S on September 23rd. 

The apparitions were of exactly the same type, seen in the 
same places, and by the same people at varying intervals. 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 203 

The footsteps continued, and were heard by several visitors 
and new servants who had taken the places of those who had 
left, as well as myself, four sisters and brother. In all, about 
twenty people, many of them not having previously heard of 
the apparition or sounds. Other sounds were also heard in 
addition, which seemed gradually to increase in intensity. 
They consisted of walking up and down on the second floor 
landing, of bumps against the doors of the bedrooms, and 
of the handles of the doors turning. The bumps against the 
bedroom doors were so marked as to terrify a new servant, 
who had heard nothing of the frequenting, into the belief that 
burglars were in the house. 

A second set of footsteps was also heard, heavy and irregular, 
constantly reoccurring, lasting a great part of the night, often 
three or four times a week. On the first floor the same noises 
are heard, especially in the front right-hand room formerly 
used by Mr and Mrs S . 

These facts were kept quiet on account of the landlord, who 
feared they might depreciate the value of the house, and any 
new servants were not told of them, though to anyone who 
had already heard of them we carefully explained the harmless 
nature of the apparition. Some left us on account of the noises, 
and we could never induce any of them to go out of their 
rooms after they had once got up for the night. 

During this year, at Mr Myers' suggestion, I kept a photo- 
graphic camera constantly ready to try to photograph the 
figure, but only on a few occasions I was able to do so. I got 
no result at night, usually by candlelight, a long exposure 
would be necessary for so dark a figure, and this I could not 
obtain. I also tried to communicate with the figure, * constantly 
speaking to it and asking it to make signs if not able to speak, 
but with no results. I also tried especially to touch her, 
but did not succeed. On cornering her, as I did once or twice, 
she disappeared. Some time in the summer of this year 
(1886) Mrs Twining, our regular charwoman, saw the figure 
while waiting in the hall at the door leading to the kitchen 
stairs for her payment. Until it suddenly vanished from her 
sight, as no mortal figure could have done, she thought it was a 

* It is a pity that Miss Morton did not know how to communicate 
or did not obtain the aid of a psychic, and thus find out what was 
troubling this unhappy spirit. 



204 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

lady visitor who had mistaken her way. Mr Myers inter- 
viewed her on December 29th, 1899, and has her separate 
account. 

On one night in July, 1886 (my father and I being away 
from home), my mother and her maid heard a loud noise in 
an unoccupied room over their heads. They went up, but 
seeing nothing and the noise ceasing they went back to my 
mother's room on the first story. Then they heard loud noises 
from the morning-room on the ground floor. They went half- 
way downstairs when they saw a bright light in the hall 
beneath (vide Chap. XVII.). Being alarmed they went up to 

my sister E , who then came down, and they all three 

examined the doors, windows, etc., and found them all fastened 

as usual. My mother, M , and her maid then went to bed. 

My sister E went to her room on the second story, but as 

she passed the room where my two sisters L and M 

were sleeping, they opened the door to say that they had heard 
noises and also seen what they described as the flame of a candle 
without candle or hand visible, cross the room diagonally from 
corner to door. Two of the maids opened the doors of their 
two bedrooms and said they had also heard noises. They all 
five stood at their doors with lighted candles for some little 
time. They all heard steps walking up and down the landing 
between them ; as they passed they felt a sensation which 
they described as a cold wind, though their candles were not 
blown out. They saw nothing. The steps then descended 
the stairs, reascended, again descended, and did not return. 
In the course of the following autumn we heard traditions of 
earlier frequenting, though, unfortunately, in no case were we 
able to get a first-hand account. 

1. A gardener who had worked several times a week at a 
house on the opposite side of the road was reported to have 
several times seen a figure in our garden before we occupied 
the house. This figure he knew not to be that of a real person. 

2. I met a lady at a friend's house, who told me that when 
living in the town seven or eight years before she had frequently 
been told that the house and garden were haunted by Mrs 
S — — . 

3. The apparition was mentioned by my uncle (since dead) 
at a mess table in Halifax, Nova Scotia, when an officer then 
present said that while in the town seven or eight years before 
he had been told that the house was haunted, and remembered 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 205 

looking up at the windows with interest as he rode past to see 
if he could see anything at them. 

We also now heard from a carpenter who had done odd jobs 

in the house in Mrs S 's time that Mrs S — — wished to 

possess herself of Mrs S 's jewels. Her husband had called 

him in to make a receptacle under the boards in the morning- 
room on the ground floor, in which receptacle he placed the 
jewels and then had it nailed down and the carpet replaced. 
The carpenter showed us the place. My father made him take 
up the boards ; the receptacle was there, but empty. 

My father thought that there might be something hidden 
near the garden door, where the figure usually disappeared. 
The boards were taken up, and nothing was there but the 
original shavings and dust. 

My father went to Bristol and there found the register of 

Mrs S 's death, which had taken place on September 23rd, 

1878. He called on the doctor who had attended her, and 
asked him if there had been any disfigurement of the face, 
which would account for its persistent concealment. 

He remembered the case, and said there had not been, 
he thought the face had become more full and round. 

During 1887 we have a few records ; the appearances were 
less frequent. 

On Friday, February 4, my sister E was coming down- 
stairs at about 7.30 p. m., when she saw the figure moving across 
the hall from the front room to the drawing-room, she herself 
being at the top of the first flight of stairs. The gas was lighted 
in the hall at the time. In an interview with Mr Myers 
on February 14, she told him that she thought this was about 
the tenth time she had seen the figure. She went on into the 
dining-room and told my father, they called me from the 
morning-room, and we all three went into the drawing-room, 
of which the door was shut. Nothing was to be seen or heard. 

During the next two years, 1887 to 1889, as far as I know, 
the figure was very seldom seen, though footsteps were heard. 
From 1889 to the present, 1892, as far as I know, the figure 
has not been seen at all, the lighter footsteps lasted a little 
longer but even they have now ceased. 

The figure became much more unsubstantial on its later 
appearances. Up to about 1886 it was so solid and lifelike 
that it was often mistaken for a real person. It gradually 
became less distinct. At all times it intercepted the light. 



206 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

We have not been able to ascertain if it cast a shadow (vide 
postea). I should mention that it has been seen through 
window glass, and that I myself wear glasses habitually, 
though none of the other percipients do so. The upper part 
of the figure always left a more distinct impression than the 
lower, but this may be partly due to the fact that one naturally 
looks at people's faces before their feet. 

Proofs of the Tenuous Nature of the Figure 

i . I have several times fastened fine strings across the 
stairs at various heights before going to bed, but after all 
others have gone up to their rooms. These were fastened 
in the following way. I made small pellets of marine glue, 
into which I inserted the ends of the cord, then stuck one 
pellet lightly against the wall and the other to the banister, 
the string being thus stretched across the stairs. They were 
knocked down by a very slight touch, and yet would not be 
felt by anyone passing up or down the stairs, and by candle- 
light could not be seen from below. They were put at various 
heights from the ground, from six inches to the height of the 
banisters, about three feet. 

I have twice, at least, seen the figure pass through the cords, 
leaving them intact.* 

2. The sudden and complete disappearance of the figure 
while still in full view. 

3. The impossibility of touching the figure. I have re- 
peatedly followed it into a corner, when it disappeared, and 
have tried to suddenly pounce upon it, but have never suc- 
ceeded in touching it or getting my hand up to it, the figure 
eluding my touch. 

4. It had appeared in a room with the door shut. 

On the other hand the figure was not called up by a desire 
to see it, for on every occasion when we had made special 
arrangements to watch for it we never saw it. On several 
occasions we have sat up at night hoping to see it, but in vain 
— my father, with my brother-in-law, myself and a friend, 



* Showing that on these occasions either the figure was manifesting 
as an etherialisation, or the lower part of the body was not material- 
ised. Vide Cha,pter XX. That the figure at times was materialised 
is proved by the fact that on one occasion it opened the door. — C.L.T. 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 207 

three or four times ; an aunt and myself, twice ; and my 
sisters, with friends, more than once, but on none of these 
occasions was anything seen. Nor have the appearances been 
seen after we have been talking or thinking of the figure. 

The figure has been connected with the second Mrs S , 

the grounds for which are : 

1. The complete history of the house is known, and if we 
are to connect the figure with any of the previous occupants 
she is the only person who in any way resembles the figure. 

2. The widow's garb excludes the first Mrs S . 

3. Although none of us had ever seen the second Mrs S- 



several people who had known her identified her from our de- 
scription. On being shown a photo album containing a number 
of photos, I picked out one of her sister as being most like that 
of the figure, and was afterwards told that the sisters were 
much alike. 

4. Her stepdaughter and others told us that she especially 
used the front drawing-room in which she continually appeared, 
and that her habitual seat was on a couch placed in a similar 
position to ours. 

5. The figure is undoubtedly connected with the house, 
none of the percipients having seen it anywhere else. 

Conduct of Animals in the House 

We have strong grounds for believing that the apparition 
was seen by two dogs. 

1. A retriever who slept in the kitchen was on several 
occasions found by the cook in a state of terror when she 
went into the kitchen in the morning. Being a large dog, he 
was not allowed upstairs. He was also seen more than once 
coming from the orchard thoroughly cowed and terrified. 
He was kindly treated, and not at all a nervous dog. 

2. A small Skye terrier, whom we had later, was allowed 
about the house. He usually slept on my bed, and undoubtedly 
heard the footsteps outside the door. I have notes on one 
occasion, on October 27, 1887. The dog was then ill and very- 
disinclined to move, but on hearing the footsteps it sprang up 
and sniffed at the door. 

Twice I remember seeing this dog suddenly run up to the 
mat at the foot of the stairs in the hall, wagging its tail and 
moving it back in the way dogs do when expecting to be 



208 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

caressed. It jumped up fawning, as it would do if a person 
had been standing there, but suddenly slunk away with its 
tail between its legs, and retreated trembling under a sofa. 
We were all thoroughly under the impression that it had seen 
the figure. Its action was peculiar, and was much more strik- 
ing to an onlooker than it could possibly appear from a de- 
scription. 

In conclusion, as to the feelings aroused by the presence 
of the figure, it is very difficult to describe them. On the first 
few occasions I think the feeling of awe at something un- 
known, mixed with a strong desire to know more about it, 
predominated. Later, when I was able to analyse my feelings 
more closely and the first novelty had gone off,, I felt conscious 
of a feeling of loss, as if I had lost power to the figure. 

Most of the percipients speak of a feeling of a cold wind, 
but I myself have not experienced this. 

In writing the above account, my memory of the occur- 
rences has been largely assisted by reference to a set of journal 
letters written at the time and by notes of interviews held by 
Mr Myers with my father and various members of the family. 

E. R. C. Morton. 

April i, 1892. 

See also separate accounts of : (1) Miss Campbell ; 

(2) Miss E. Morton ; (3) W. H. C. Morton ; (4) Mrs K ; 

(5) Mrs Brown ; (6) Mrs Twining. — Proceedings S.P.R., 
vol. viii. 

Mrs K — - says of the apparition that " she saw it 
cross the hall, push open the drawing-room door, and go in," 
and also adds that she has "often heard the footsteps like 
a person wearing flat list, or cloth, slippers, and that she 
has heard the swish of woollen drapery." 

This account is full of interest, and we have occasion 
to refer to it in other chapters where we deal with the 
ethereal nature of the Spiritual Body, and also its influence 
upon animals. 

The accompanying manifestation of light is a pheno- 
menon we shall consider later. 

A remarkable incident related by Miss Morton is the 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 209 

gasping on the part of the figure when spoken to, as if the 
Spiritual Body heard but in this case could not speak. A 
similar incident has been related to me personally by a 
parishioner who witnessed an apparition in one of the old 
country seats situated in the Yorkshire dales. The figure 
visible down to the knees, on being pursued by her down 
the corridor and challenged, turned as though it heard and \ 
would have answered. -^ 

These apparitions manifest different degrees of power in 
making themselves and their presence apparent. This is 
dependent on the amount of power available (vide Chapter 
XX.). In some cases they can only make themselves 
audible, in others the head, or the figure as far as the waist, 
is seen, while in others the whole figure becomes visible. The 
difficulty attending their manifestation to us is also appar- 
ently complicated by the imperfect powers of perception 
possessed by many to whom the manifestation is made. 
Some persons have a perceptive power in these matters 
which is lacking in others. This is noticeable in the case 
of General Campbell, and is a notable feature in many of 
the accounts. In this account of Miss Morton, for instance, 
Captain Morton is unable to see the figure while it is visible 
to others, and on the occasion when it was seen for half- 
an-hour in the drawing-room, many persons being present, 
only Miss Morton could perceive it. This difference in per- 
ceptive power undoubtedly exists and comes out strongly 
in the case described in Proceedings S.P.R. , vol. vi. , page 280. 
The narrator there says : " One fact seems to be satis- 
factorily established and that is, that two or three people 
out of a roomful can see it and others remain in ignorance 
of its presence. I have tried on four occasions to see it 
when it has appeared. My wife, a lady friend, and the 
butler could see it, but four other persons present failed 
to see it." 

From the evidence available it would seem that the 
Spiritual Body has often great difficulty in making itself 



210 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

visible, and in some cases where its presence can be visual- 
ised, one will perceive a column of light, another the 
perfect form (cf. Acts xxii. 9). 

Although the earnest desire was evidently present on 
the wife's part to appear to General Campbell, she was 
unable to do so, but could make herself evident to the 
young girl, his relative. This is entirely in accordance with 
human everyday experience. One man can distinctly 
perceive a colour to which another is colour blind, while 
recent advances in science have revealed to us the exist- 
ence of a whole range of the Solar Spectrum, as extensive 
or more so than that usually seen, which is invisible to the 
naked eye. The discoveries in connection with wireless 
telegraphy and radium show us the existence of subtle 
powers and forces hitherto undreamt of, and make it com- 
paratively easy for us to perceive how the Spiritual Body 
while enjoying supernormal powers may often, through our 
ignorance or insensibility, be unable to convey to us the 
communication or impression desired. 

Many of the ancestral homes of this country have their 
hauntings. In some cases these have gone on for hundreds 
of years. It would be easy to fill a large volume with well- 
attested accounts, but I confine myself to one case, that 
of Raynham Hall. Among the numerous witnesses of the 
apparition was the famous writer and redoubtable navi- 
gator, Captain Marryat, whose daughter gives the follow- 
ing account as related to her by her father : — 

The last fifteen years of my father's life were passed on his 
own estate at Langham, in Norfolk, and amongst his country 
friends were Sir Charles and Lady Townshend of Raynham 
Hall. At the time I speak of, the title and property had lately 
changed hands, and the new baronet had re-papered, painted, 
and furnished the Hall throughout, and come down with his 
wife and a large party of friends to take possession. But to 
their annoyance, soon after their arrival, rumours arose that 
the house was haunted, and their guests began, one and all 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 211 

(like those in the parable), to make excuses to go home again. 
It was all on account of a Brown Lady, whose portrait hung 
in one of the bedrooms, and in which she was represented as 
wearing a brown satin dress with yellow trimmings, and a 
ruff around her throat — a very harmless, innocent-looking 
young woman. But they all declared they had seen her 
walking about the house — some in the corridor, some in their 
bedrooms, others in the lower premises, and neither guests 
nor servants would remain in the Hall. The baronet was 
naturally very much annoyed about it, and confided his trouble 
to my father, and my father was indignant at the trick he 
believed had been played upon him. There was a great deal 
of smuggling and poaching in Norfolk at that period, as he 
knew well, being a magistrate of the county, and he felt sure 
that some of these depredators were trying to frighten the 
Townshends away from the Hall again. So he asked his 
friends to let him stay with them and sleep in the haunted 
chamber, and he felt sure he could rid them of the nuisance. 
They accepted his offer, and he took possession of the room in 
which the portrait of the apparition hung, and in which she 
had been often seen, and slept each night with a loaded re- 
volver under his pillow. For two days, however, he saw 
nothing, and the third was to be the limit of his stay. On 
the third night, however, two young men (nephews of the 
baronet) knocked at his door as he was undressing to go to 
bed, and asked him to step over to their room (which was 
at the other end of the corridor), and give them his opinion 
on a new gun just arrived from London. My father was in 
his shirt and trousers, but as the hour was late, and everybody 
had retired to rest except themselves, he prepared to accom- 
pany them as he was. As they were leaving the room, he 
caught up his revolver, " in case we meet the Brown Lady," 
he said, laughing. When the inspection of the gun was over, 
the young men in the same spirit declared they would accom- 
pany my father back again, " in case you meet the Brown 
Lady," they repeated, laughing also. The three gentlemen 
therefore returned in company. 

The corridor was long and dark, for the lights had been 
extinguished, but as they reached the middle of it, they 
saw the glimmer of a lamp coming towards them from the 
other end. " One of the ladies going to visit the nurseries," 
whispered the young Townshends to my father. Now the 



212 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

bedroom doors in that corridor faced each other, and each 
room had a double door with a space between, as is the case 
in many old-fashioned country houses. My father (as I have 
said) was in a shirt and trousers only and his native modesty 
made him feel uncomfortable, so he slipped within one of the 
outer doors (his friends following his example), in order to 
conceal himself until the lady should have passed by. I have 
heard him describe how he watched her approaching nearer 
and nearer, through the chink of the door, until, as she was 
close enough for him to distinguish the colours and style of 
her costume, he recognised the figure as the facsimile of the 
portrait of "The Brown Lady." He had his finger on the 
trigger of his revolver, and was about to demand it to stop 
and give the reason for its presence there, when the figure 
halted of its own accord before the door behind which he stood, 
and holding the lighted lamp she carried to her features, 
deliberately grinned at him. This act so infuriated my father, 
who was anything but lamb-like in disposition, that he sprang 
into the corridor with a bound, and discharged the revolver 
right in her face. The figure instantly disappeared — the 
figure at which for the space of several minutes three men 
had been looking together — and the bullet passed through 
the outer door of the room on the opposite side of the 
corridor and lodged in the panel of the inner door. My 
father never attempted again to interfere with the Brown 
Lady, and I have heard that she haunts the premises to 
this day. That she did so at the time there is no shadow 
of doubt. 

Miss Lucia C. Stone gives an account of the appearance 
of the Brown Lady to Colonel Loftus, cousin of Sir Charles 
and brother of Lady Townshend, when with other guests 
he was staying at Raynham Hall. 

He saw the apparition twice, the second time intercepting 
it and meeting it face to face. " There in a good light stood 
a stately lady in her rich brocade, a sort of coif on her 
head, the features clearly denned." Colonel Loftus made 
a sketch of what he saw and Miss Stone examined, it The 
apparition was also seen by several of the other guests. 
Miss Page, cousin of Mrs Loftus, and intimately known to 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 213 

Miss Stone, asked Lord Charles if he too believed in the 
apparition. He replied : "I cannot but believe, for she 
ushered me into my room last night." 

With reference to this case I have just received the follow- 
ing from the Rector of West Raynham, Norfolk, the Rev. 
W. P. M. M'Lean, which leaves little doubt that the appari- 
tion has been seen in quite recent times. Writing under 
date 3rd June 1918 he says : 

I remember fourteen or fifteen years ago a guest staying at 
the Hall told me that he was convinced that he saw this Brown 
Lady one evening, and I have heard that the children of the 
people in the Hall — years ago — asked who the brown lady 
was who came into their room frequently. 

I now come to a case which has an especial interest for 
me in that it formed my introduction to the subject of 
Psychic Manifestation apart from the sporadic experience 
related on page 92. 

After being curate of Ormskirk for three years I accepted 

the post of curate of H , in Norfolk, and as the rector, 

Canon C , was aged and his wife had just died, he 

vacated the Rectory and it was arranged that I and my 
wife, to whom I had been married only a few months, 

should live there. We arrived at H on Thursday, 2nd 

February 1900, and in the evening went down to the 
Rectory to begin unpacking our goods, which had come 
the day before. 

We had no lights save those of candles as darkness drew 
on, and to illuminate the hall I dropped melted wax from 
one of the candles upon the top of the banister pillar at 
the foot of the staircase, and stuck the lighted candle upright 
in the wax. About 8.40 p.m. my wife came to me and 
said : " This is an eerie sort of place. I have just seen a 
man in the hall." I rushed down the passage into the hall 
but could see no one. At the top of the first flight of stairs 



214 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

there hung an oil-painting of Dr Cams, founder of Caius 
College, Cambridge, and also of this benefice of H . 



This picture belonged to the Rectory, and Canon C 

afterwards informed me that it had hung there for genera- 
tions. Turning to my wife and pointing to the painting, 
I said : " You have seen that picture in the candlelight, 
and mistaken it for a man on the stairs." She, however, 
persisted that she had not done so, but had seen a man 
dressed in what looked like a cassock with a girdle coming 
down the stairs, with his foot raised in act to take another 
step. She said he resembled the picture and had a 
ruddy face. I laughed it off, and next morning, saying 
to her : " He shall not frighten you again," I took down 
the picture and hurrying with it up to the third story 
of the house, locked it in one of an extensive range of 
attics. 

All Friday and Saturday, up to late in the evening, we 
were hard at work unpacking and arranging our furniture. 
About 8 p.m. we were coming through the hall, now lighted 
by a lamp. I had just passed through the dining-room 
door when I heard a noise behind me and, turning, saw my 
wife in the act of falling as in a faint. I caught her in my 
arms and dragged her into the room. On recovering she 
gasped : " Oh, I have just seen that man again." She 
described him as near the top of the flight in act of descend- 
ing the stairs, with one foot raised, and wearing a sort of 
cassock. She saw the figure full length on each occasion, 
while the painting only shows the head and shoulders of 
Dr Caius. 

As the picture was not hanging at the top of the first 
flight of stairs on this second occasion, it obviously could 
not have been mistaken by my wife for the figure. This 
second incident much upset me, and I could not tell what 
to make of it. The Rectory was a large, three-storied house, 
with long corridors and passages, and was, to one just fresh 
from town life, rather a lonely sort of place. 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 215 

Next morning, Sunday, my first Sunday in the place, at 
7 a.m., the girl we had secured as a maid came to our bed- 
room door saying : " Did you ring, ma'am ? " We had not 
rung ; in fact the girl awoke us by knocking on the door. 
We told her she was mistaken, and she retired. However, 
very soon she began to come several times a day to us, 
asking whether we had rung, and what we wanted. We 
began to realise that bells were ringing in some mysterious 
way. I made a thorough examination of the bells, which 
were in perfect order, and found that the wire of one bell 
— that from the drawing-room — passed through the outer 
wall on to the outside of the house for a couple of feet. 
This seemed to solve the mystery. Alas, however, for this 
fine theory. This drawing-room bell never rang, nor gave 
us any trouble, nor did the wire, when pulled, interfere 
with or cause any other bell to ring. It also differed in 
tone from those which rang. However, to make sure I 
had the wire outside solidly covered over, so that no one 
could touch it. We were now on the alert. I fixed 
pendulums to the bells and we watched the bells carefully, 
and found, to our astonishment, that the bell which rang 
was the one communicating with the particular attic room 
in which I had locked up the portrait of Dr Caius ! ! I shall 
not easily forget the mental shock I received on realising 
this fact. The thing seemed incredible. However, taking 
a pair of wire cutters, I said : " Well, if the picture has 
something to do with it, I will stop it." I then cut the bell 
wire close to the bell, thus destroying the means of connec- 
tion and isolating the room. 

Next day and for several days the same bell still rang, 
in spite of the fact that the wire was cut. At this time we 
got another maid-servant from a neighbouring village. 
The bell still continued to ring, in spite of our utmost efforts 
to discover the cause. The maids denied all knowledge of 
the ringing, and on no occasion did we ever have reason. 
to suspect them. In fact, they were terrified. After this, 



216 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

bell had continued to ring for a week it stopped and the bell 
from the study now began to ring. The wire from this bell 
traversed the passage wall high up, near the ceiling, and 
passed into the study through a small iron pipe so that 
at no point could it be touched by rats. We never saw or 
heard a rat in the house all the time we lived in it. This 
study bell rang continuously, several times a day, for two 
months, sometimes swinging violently, and defying all our 
efforts to trace the cause. Several times I have returned 
from town or from visiting and found my wife and the 
servants out in the garden and afraid to enter the house. 
On one occasion, when all the persons in the house were 
in one room together, where there was neither bell nor 
bell pull, and all under my wife's observation, she said : 
" I wonder if the bell will ring to-night." Scarcely had 
she uttered the words when the bell rang, at first softly, 
then instantly afterwards, loudly, as though the wire had 
been strongly pulled. I forsook the study at the end of 
the first week of this bell's ringing, and put up the shutters 
and locked the door. Canon C told me, when I dis- 
cussed this matter with him, that this part of the house 
dated back hundreds of years. At the end of the first 
month we began to have another form of manifestation. 
Footsteps commenced to sound in some of the rooms 
along the passages, and descend the back stairs. Some- 
times these were the heavy footsteps of a man, at others 
they were lighter steps, but characterised by a peculiar 
halt or beat as though the person were lame. On one 
occasion we had a woman and her daughter in from the 
village doing some dressmaking, who had been accustomed 
to do similar work for the canon's late wife. The footsteps 
began to sound while they were at work together with my 
wife, and they and the servants all heard them. The 
woman and her daughter at once recognised them as the 

footsteps oj Mrs C , who, it appears, had the misfortune 

to be lame and who walked with a heavy beat on one foot. 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 217 

They were so terrified that they left the house at once, and 
nothing could induce them to return. At the end of two 
months the manifestations came to an end with a regular 
tour de force of bell-ringing, with footsteps and heavy 
tramping in the old part of the Rectory, which so frightened 
a new maid, who had the day previous been boasting that 
she was not afraid, that she immediately packed up her wet 
clothes from the washtub, without waiting to dry them, and 
incontinently fled. 

We remained in the house for some months after this, 
but neither heard nor saw anything further. 

This was our practical introduction to psychic mani- 
festations. Having received the usual ideas in my youth 
concerning such things, and being at that time, like almost 
the whole body of the clergy, practically ignorant of the 
verities and realities of the spirit world, I found it rather 
disconcerting. I had yet to " add to my faith knowledge," 
and to learn that men chiefly fear that which they do not 
understand. It was the beginning of my psychic educa- 
tion, which was to enlarge my outlook upon life and to 
transform my ideas almost from top to bottom. In this 
case there were indications of two manifesting personalities : 
(1) Dr Caius, founder of the benefice, whose portrait hung 

on the staircase ; (2) Mrs C , who had been deceased 

some months. 

After serving a curacy in Harrogate I became Vicar of 
Weston in the autumn of 190 1. I found myself in posses- 
sion of a house of three stories, not unlike the Rectory of 

H -, but entirely free, so it appeared, from any similar 

happenings, and we looked back on them as disagreeable 
experiences connected in some way with the Rectory house. 
Things remained quiescent until 1905, nothing happening 
in the house until that year, and no abnormal experience 
occurring save the apparition of a man's figure seen by 
my wife when we were both about one hundred yards away 
from the house. This occurred in 1902. 



218 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

In August, 1905, loud blows began to be heard upon the 
doors. These were first heard by my mother, then by the 
servants, and afterwards by my wife. At first the pheno- 
mena occurred at long intervals. Gradually they became 
more frequent and more complex, arriving at their height 
during the autumn of 1910 and the spring of 1911, during 
which six months we had almost daily a series of the most 
remarkable manifestations on record. 

These manifestations continued several years with 
varying degrees of power, frequency and interest, up to 
about a year ago, when there began to be a marked falling 
off, though occasionally we still get remarkable manifesta- 
tions. This occurred so late as April- June (1918), when a 
wonderful materialised apparition appeared seven times, 
six times in daylight, seen on one occasion by my wife, 
myself, and my son together, and on others seen, heard 
and felt, by myself, wife and daughter, also in daylight. 
These experiences have covered the whole range of psychic 
phenomena : apparitions, materialisations, etherialisations, 
lights, pillars of fire, the direct voice, very loud and in 
daylight, appearances of animals, automatic writing, 
psychic photography, movements of furniture and other 
objects, volleys of bell-ringing, remarkable warnings and 
prophetic forecasts of coming events accurately fulfilled, 
sometimes to the day, hour and minute, and many evidential 
messages from my "dead" relatives and friends, a very 
remarkable guardian-angel attitude shown by the mani- 
festing intelligences of the utmost service (page 139), some- 
times warning us of danger, and on one occasion saving life ; 
and many other phases too numerous to mention. 

The accounts of these happenings fill seven large volumes, 
and form a unique record. Some of the more remarkable 
are given in this volume. These phenomena have been 
almost entirely spontaneous, coming without a moment's 
warning. Only on one or two occasions have we ever ex- 
perienced any phenomena where we watched for them. 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 219 

This makes our experience all the more evidential and 
refutes the theory of expectancy entirely (180, 202). 

These phenomena have been witnessed by a score of 
persons, male and female, young and old, under varying 
conditions, and often by four to six persons at once. Nearly 
all the more wonderful took place either in daylight or full 
lamplight. In many of the cases the witnesses all signed 
the records, on oath. These witnesses include W. W. 
Baggally, Esq., one of the Council of the S.P.R., who has 
had much experience of these phenomena. He visited us 
several times and resided for weeks in the house, and was 
convinced of the reality of the occurrences. He made a 
carefully recorded cross-examination of nearly all the wit- 
nesses, visiting several of the maids who had left our employ, 
and informed us that they more than confirmed our state- 
ments by recalling little incidents that we had forgotten, 
which were strongly evidential. He made this statement 
to me on 29th April 1911. He signed a statement to 
similar effect in my journal, and said that all the witnesses 
agreed and that he believed the accounts to be accurate, 
and that these experiences, so long and varied, were prob- 
ably the most remarkable on record. This opinion was 
confirmed by subsequent visits, and it was during one of 
his visits that one of the most remarkable experiences 
occurred, an experience which he declared to be the most 
perfect and remarkable of its kind extant. No one 
living in the house for any length of time, experiencing 
the phenomena and weighing the evidence, could avoid 
the conviction of the supernormal and spiritual character 
of the manifestations. The evidence gradually became 
irresistible. 

My psychic education was begun in 1900. Now it is 
practically completed, and the result has been to bring 
absolute conviction of the reality and nearness of the 
spirit world, of the immediate resurrection and man's 
survival of the change called death, and of the practical 



220 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

possibility and utility of communication between the two 
worlds in these modern times : 

The invisible world with thee hath sympathised, 
Uplift thine heart and be thou solemnised. 

" It has been such a lifting of the mental horizon, such 
a letting in of the heavens," as Gerald Massey truly says, 
that the change may be likened to "being reared in a 
dungeon by the light of a candle, and then suddenly being 
allowed to go out on a starry night, for the hrst time, and 
see the stupendous mechanism of the heavens all aglow with 
the glory of God." 

What a tragedy the present-day failure of the Churches 
to realise these things is. Their attitude is a terrible com- 
mentary on human blindness and fallibility. 

At this point I recall to mind the criticism of the editor 
of one of our religious weeklies on similar happenings, in 
which he asked of what use were such tales of wonder, 
saying that even if true they were trivial and had 
nothing to do with religion. I am afraid that he, and 
others like him, entirely fail to perceive the value and 
necessity of objective phenomena in proving that spirit 
manifestations are not merely subjective experiences {vide 
page 90). 

Let us apply their " arguments" to some of the pheno- 
mena mentioned in the Bible. The tests with the fleece of 
wool (Judges vi.), the swimming of the axe-head (2 Kings 
vi. 6), Christ walking on the water (Mark vi. 48), his wither- 
ing of the fig-tree (Matt. xxi. 19), the draught of fishes 
(Luke v. 6), the turning of water into wine (John ii.), the 
taking money from a fish's mouth (Matt, xxvii.), Christ's 
clairvoyant view of Andrew under the fig-tree (John i. 48). 
All these might similarly be described either as "tales of 
wonder " or "trivial" or "of no especial religious signifi- 
cance," as the case may be. How easy it is to turn the tables 
on such critics. Professing zeal for religion and spiritual 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 221 

things, like Brewster : " Spirit is the last thing they will 
give in to." They occupy a very vulnerable position 
(Chapter XXVI.), and they would do well to remember 
the fact. One often hears this objection that these mani- 
festations are purposeless and useless and of a trivial nature. 
This cannot be maintained in the face of the evidence avail- 
able. It is a matter of common experience that a very 
definite purpose often lies behind these manifestations, as, 
for instance, the fulfilling of a compact, the warning of im- 
pending danger, exhortations to good living, the conveying 
of definite and useful information, and that they often give 
abundant indications of superhuman powers, wisdom and 
forethought. This is abundantly illustrated and confirmed 
in the pages of Holy Writ and has been frequently shown 
in a most marked manner in my own experience and that 
of many other persons in modern times (page 190). 

If the utility of modern psychic experiences was confined 
only to proving to this generation the existence of the spirit 
world, the fact of man's survival after death, and that a 
spirit is not an " immaterial entity," as the dictionaries 
describe it, this would be utility of the highest order and 
of the utmost consequence to mankind (2 Cor. iv. 18). 
Such shallow criticisms as those just quoted invariably 
show ignorance of the history of psychical phenomena, 
want of experience in the same, and a totally wrong con- 
ception of the nature and conditions of life on the other 
side, which is far more human and natural than we have 
hitherto been led to believe by the teaching of the Churches, 
life being taken up there at much the same point wheie 
it is laid down here, apparently on the principle enunciated 
in Rev. xxii. 11. That life on the other side is taken up 
practically where laid down here, and that the spirit world 
is peopled by " all sorts and conditions of men " is a fact 
which is realised by very few, especially among the orthodox. 
Entrance into the spirit world neither confers the wisdom 
nor power of an archangel, nor the goodness of a saint, 



222 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

nor the badness of a devil. Communications from the 
spirit world will, therefore, be good or wise just in pro- 
portion as they come from the good or from the wise, 
hence the necessity of weighing all communications in the 
balances of human intelligence, as recommended in i John 
iv. i* ("Try the spirits" — SoKt^a^ere, test experimentally), 
and exercising our own reason and common sense. 

Objective psychic phenomena constitute the only means 
whereby revealed religion, and a proved knowledge of the 
spirit world can be given, and continuously confirmed, to 
us, and their presence is a necessity from age to age. 

I have heard people (some of them, alas, clergy !) dismiss 
the whole subject of modern spirit communications and 
phenomena with a lofty contempt, born of ignorance and 
inexperience, by a brief reference to the "foolishness " or 
" triviality " of some of the communications. Unaware of 
the fact that very many of these communications are wise, 
dignified, and useful, the very reverse of foolish or trivial, 
in their ignorance of the subject these people seem to think 
that all messages from the Beyond must of necessity be 
supremely wise and good. They are well answered by a 
psychic communication recorded by Dr Funk in his most 
interesting book, The Widow's Mite, which, in a reply on 
this point, answered : " Yes ! we have many fools over 
here. If you continue to send us fools, how can we help it ? " 
Such objectors would do well to remember Carlyle's famous 
dictum and also the fact that many foolish things are said 
and done by their fellows in the flesh. 

As touching the object and purpose of many of these 
manifestations, my own experience, which is extensive, 
has shown me that a definite and useful purpose, sometimes 

* Compare with i John iii. 24; 1 Sam. x. 6; Ezekiel ii. 1, 2 ; iii. 24, 
as indicating independent spirit personalities. Also compare with 
1 Cor. xiv. 22; Ezekiel ii. 1, 2; 2 Kings iii. 15; Ezekiel viii. 1-3, as 
showing definite relations between the " prophet " or the one re- 
ceiving the message, and the controlling spirit as a separate entity. 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 223 

fixed and long pursued, often lies behind such manifestations. 
Some of these instances appear in these pages, and I could 
relate others of thrilling interest from my own personal 
experience, the peculiarly private nature of which compels 
me to withhold them. 

In the manifestations to us at the Rectory of H — — , 
several useful and purposeful things are apparent. (1) The 
introduction of the subject to us, with all its far-reaching 
consequences. (2) The indications of the survival of Mrs 
C— — , lately deceased, and of the continued interest of 
this lady and also of Dr Caius, in the scenes and associa- 
tions of their mortal life. (3) The tremendous fact that 
spirits can enter into relations with grosser matter, set 
objects in motion and exert considerable force, making 
themselves audible and visible ; these things are all appar- 
ent to the student and investigator. 

It must be clearly understood that neither our experi- 
ences at H nor those at Weston are to be classed with 

the ordinary cases of " haunting," as it is usully termed. 

Neither the Rectory of H nor the Vicarage of Weston 

are haunted. As far as I have been able to ascertain, 

nothing has been seen or heard at H since we left, and 

careful inquiries made from the former occupants show 
that nothing similar to what I relate had ever been seen or 
heard in Weston Vicarage before we came. The reason 
is not far to seek. These are not ordinary cases of " haunt- 
ing," but took place because my wife happened to be a 
remarkable psychic and afforded the means of communica- 
tion to spiritual beings, who had been, in the case of H , 

associated with the Rectory, and later, at Weston, to our 
deceased friends, relations, and others. 

One often hears the query : " Why don't I have these ex- 
periences ? " The answer is simple : because the querist is 
either not a psychic himself or has no one psychic in his 
surroundings. The means of communication are lacking. 
The presence of a psychic is essential : some person or 



224 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

persons so constituted that through them the manifestation 
can be made. 

Hundreds of instances of this frequenting are on record. 
The cause varies in almost every case. Sometimes a 
tragedy binds the murderer or attracts the victim to the 
spot. Instances are on record where in the latter case the 
appearances have been the means of bringing the murderer 
to justice. Sometimes, as in the Children case, it has 
been love of the old home and intense concentration of 
all interests upon the loved abode. Sometimes there is a 
desire to impart information often of great importance ; 
at others it is love for one still living in the house that in- 
duces the spirit to linger around the old scenes. Where the 
frequenting is long-continued and persistent, efforts ought 
to be made by the aid of a good psychic to get in touch with 
the spirit and ascertain the cause. Often the spirit is an 
unhappy one, striving to disburden itself of some secret, or 
to make reparation for something done, or it may be craving 
just for sympathy and help. I remember one case where a 
poor, unhappy soul — a suicide, as it proved — manifested 
to us over a period of several years, and in various parts of 
the country, until at last he got his message through, most 
dramatically and evidentially (page 160), begging for our 
prayers. In some of these cases the spirit gains its first 
advance as the result of such efforts and the sympathy 
shown to it. 

I particularly wish to emphasise the fact that these 
manifestations are almost invariably harmless, and when 
understood do not give the slightest cause for alarm. Many 
of them are simply attempts of friends or relations to greet 
us and to communicate the joyful news that they are no 
more dead than we are, but alive and happy. A case of 
this kind recently came under my notice, in which a lady 
was much frightened by a black apparition. On investiga- 
tion it proved to be her brother, recently killed at the Front, 
doing his best to reach her, as he soon did, with a message of 



FAMILIAR SCENES REVISITED 225 

love and affection, so that what at first terrified her became 
her most precious consolation. A similar thing happened 
in my Vicarage at Weston on 14th June 1914. 

About 11 a.m. my daughter Marjorie twice distinctly saw 
a black hand waving to her in the passage in broad day- 
light, and shortly afterwards my wife saw the same black 
hand again waving as she walked through the passage. She 
hastily called Marjorie to her and they both saw it waving 
to them. My daughter was frightened, as the hand was 
black. On sitting for communication we found that it was 
nothing more alarming than the dear old Rector of Walling- 
ton, the Rev- W- Clarke, who married us, and who had 
recently passed to the other side. He came with a message 
and greeting, recalling old times. It was his invariable 
custom to preach in black gloves, hence the significance of 
the black hand. My daughter Marjorie did not know this, 
and never saw him in life ! 



The objection is made that modern psychic messages do not 
show evidences of the minds of great scientists, scholars or poets, 
and that all the messages are trivial and commonplace. Both state- 
ments are grossly untrue {vide page 483). We note that the spirit 
messages of the Bible contain no striking revelation of a great 
scientific fact, or useful invention, but we do not reject them on this ac- 
count (vide page 139). It must be remembered that the Bible contains 
the chiefest and choicest of the psychic messages and manifestations 
received during thousands of years, and does not record the multi- 
tudes of comparatively unimportant messages which must have also 
been received by the psychics of those times, That this was the 
case even in the life of Christ is proved by John xx. 30 ; xxi. 25 ; 
Acts i. 3. It is not just to compare the best of the ancient with the 
worst of the modern, as is constantly done. What if it were proposed 
to judge the quality of the ancient psychic messages by those con- 
tained in the Apocrypha ? 

The fact of importance, before which all others pale, is that modern 
psychic messages and manifestations have proved human survival 
and the objectivity of the spirit world to our own times as certainly 
as ever did the ancient ones to a past age. 



XV 



CONCERNING THE FORECASTING OF EVENTS, AND INFORMA- 
TION GIVEN, BY APPARITIONS OF THE DEPARTED, AND 
ALSO BY COMMUNICATION TO MAN'S SPIRITUAL SELF 
DURING SLEEP 

Moreover the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the 
hands of the Philistines, and to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be 
with me. — i Samuel xix. 20. 

And behold the Angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a 
dream saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother 
and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word. — 
Matthew xi. 13. 

Who appeared in glory and spake of his decease which he should 
accomplish at Jerusalem. — -Luke ix. 31. 

And when Pilate was set down on the j udgment seat his wife sent 
unto him saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man for I 
have suffered many things in a dream because of him. — Matthew 
xxvii. 19. 

THE Bible is a book of visions, of apparitions, and 
of veridical dreams from beginning to end. These 
are so well known that it is not necessary for me 
to particularise them here, but merely to turn at once to 
the question : " Do such things occur nowadays ? " and 
to answer decidedly in the affirmative. 

While cases where information is imparted during sleep 
are numerous, there are many instances of premonitory 
apparitions, and we will first turn to these. 

It is as well here to say that the idea, which is very 
prevalent, that an apparition invariably betokens calamity 
or death is totally unfounded, as the most casual study of 
the instances cited in this work will show. Some, of course, 
naturally refer to these important events, but the majority 
do not, while in many cases the apparition ministers to 
consolation and -encouragement. A proper recognition of 
this fact would go far to remove that fear and mistrust of 
these things which, while natural, is really unfounded and 
much to be deplored. 

226 



PREMONITIONS 227 

With this explanation by the way, we will now examine 
a number of instances where coming events of various 
kinds are distinctly announced or foreshadowed. We will 
first turn to those accompanied by a visible apparition. 
Our first account is taken from Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v., 
page 296. 

December 19, 1883. 

Sir, — Having seen your letter in The Standard, it brings to 
my memory an event that took place six weeks before my 
elder daughter died (five years ago come next March). The 
child had never been strong, and to make sure she was well 
looked after when she went to rest she used to sleep in a little 
bed by my side so that I could attend to her easily if she 
wanted looking to. 

My wife at that time, being an invalid, kept a lamp con- 
stantly alight. I was sleeping with my back to the child 
when I was suddenly aroused by a touch on the shoulder. 
I turned at once thinking that the child required something 
when I distinctly saw the spirit form of the child rise from the 
bed. This made me afraid that the child was dead, and I at 
once put my hand on her forehead, but found it warm and 
her breathing regular. I also noticed that her arms were not 
outside the counterpane, but that the child was well covered 
up. 

These, sir, are stubborn facts ; I made a memo in my 
pocket-book the following morning of being touched in this 
mysterious manner and seeing the apparition of the child. 
It was to me a warning of the approaching departure of my 
little one, although, as far as we could see, nothing ailed the 
child for five following weeks, yet in the sixth week my little 
darling died. 

I am, sir, yours faithfully, 

W. T. Catleugh. 

Mr Catleugh subsequently wrote : 

Dear Sir, — In reply to yours of yesterday. Neither before 
nor since the time that I saw my little girl's spirit form have 
I seen any apparition or been unaccountably touched. 

Had this incident been a dream I should not have troubled 



228 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

you with the narration of it. But I emphatically declare 
that I was roused from sleep by a mysterious touch, that the 
room was light from the lamp, and that when I turned round 
I saw the spirit form of the child rise from the bed and dis- 
appear out of sight as distinctly as if it had been the child 
itself. 

I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, 

W. T. Catleugh. 

Mrs Catleugh also writes and confirms this. 

This is a typical case where symbol is used instead of a 
definite message. There are numbers of well-authenticated 
cases on record, one, that of Christopher C. Brooks, son of 
Professor Brooks, of Baltimore, bearing a remarkable re- 
semblance to that of the daughter of Sir Charles Lee (q.v.), 
and is well attested. The first account was published in 
the Baltimore Sun of 8th December 1883, and afterwards 
fully verified by Mr Gurney. See also the case of Lady 
Beresford and Lord Tyrone. 

Turn we now to another notable and very well authenti- 
cated vision of a future event. It is taken from vol. xi. 
of the Proceedings S.P.R., page 505. It was first sent by 
Mr Alfred Cooper, F.R.C.S., the eminent surgeon, then 
residing at 9 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, and was 
investigated personally by Mr Gurney. An independent 
and similar account has also been given personally to Mr 
Myers by another gentleman to whom the Duchess of 
Hamilton related the vision on the morning after the 
occurrence. 

The following account was written out by Mr Cooper, 
and afterwards attested by the Duchess of Hamilton: — 

A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L in 

1882 I called upon the Duke of Hamilton in Hill Street to see 
him professionally. After I had finished seeing him I went 
into the drawing-room where the Duchess was, and the Duke 
said to me, " Oh, Cooper, how is the Earl ? " The Duchess 
then said, " What Earl ? " and on my answering Lord L 



PREMONITIONS 229 

she replied, " That is very odd. I have had a most extra- 
ordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in bed a short 
time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene as if 

from a play before me. The actors in it were Lord L , 

in a chair as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a 
red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over which bath a 
red lamp was distinctly shown." 

I then said, " I am attending Lord L at present, 

there is very little the matter with him, he is not going to die, 
he will be all right very soon. 

Well, he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at 
the end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him 
suddenly. He had inflammation on both lungs. I called in 
Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead man. There 
were two male nurses attending on him. One had been taken 
ill, but when I saw the other the dream of the Duchess was 
exactly represented. 

He was standing near, a bath, over the Earl, and strange to 
say his beard was red. There was the bath with the red lamp 
over it also, it is rather rare to find a bath with a red lamp 
over it, and this brought the story to my mind. 

The vision seen by the Duchess was told two weeks before 

the death of Lord L . It is a most remarkable thing. 

This account written in 1888 has been revised by the (late) 
Duke of Manchester, brother of the Duke of Hamilton, who 
heard the vision from his daughter on the morning after she 
had seen it. 

Lord L was only known by sight to the Duchess, and 

she did not know that he was ill. When the vision occurred 
she was not asleep, so that it was a vision and not a dream, of 
this she was certain, because she opened and shut her eyes to 
try to get rid of the spectacle, but continued to perceive it. 

This is a true premonition or revelation of a future 
event which it is impossible to explain away by any anti- 
spiritual hypothesis, and it is particularly well attested, 
the witness of the actual fulfilment being an eminent 
surgeon, to whom the prediction was told by the Duchess 
two weeks before the Earl's death. 

Since the publication of the first edition of this book I 
have had in my own family some of the most remarkable 



230 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

cases of prophetic forecastings of coming events by vision 
and symbol, dreams, and direct message, that are to be 
found on record. They have been awe-inspiring, and of 
the most profound interest, giving absolute proof of the 
intervention of extra mundane, or other-world intelligences 
in the affairs of this mortal life. I will relate them under 
their several heads in the course of this chapter. 

It will be noticed that some of these most wonderful 
forecastings refer to the ordinary affairs of earth life, and 
are evidence of the existence of spiritual beings who know 
what is about to come to pass, and also of the possibility 
and utility of communication between the two worlds. 
Others concern the passing of relatives into that spirit 
world to which we are all bound. These, however, were 
managed so judiciously that the warning did not give 
that shock that might have been expected from the nature 
of each case, but, on the contrary, by the evidence they 
afforded of the reality of that other life, they greatly 
softened the blow of bereavement. 

On Sunday, 9th April 191 1, I arrived home from church 
about 8 p.m. and was at once informed by my wife that she 
and the servants had had a most extraordinary experience 
which had startled them all very much. She called the 
two maids, Rosetta and Ida, into the room, and together 
they gave me the following account, which I wrote down, 
they all signing the account and taking oath solemnly upon 
the Testament that it was true. They informed me that 
about 7.40 they were all together, my wife, the two servants 
and Baby Dorothy, in the kitchen, when suddenly, to their 
great alarm, a woman appeared in the doorway leading 
from the passage, clad in white, with long, black hair hang- 
ing down to her waist, and bearing on her hands what 
appeared to be a coffin, which she turned endwise so as to 
pass it through the door. She then held it up on her hands 
before them. It was very broad in comparison to its 
length, more like a box in this respect. They all saw the 



PREMONITIONS 231 

handles on the sides and a nameplate on the top, but could 
distinguish no name. They all cried out, whereupon the 
figure turned, manoeuvring the coffin again through the 
doorway, and hurried along the passage with it. Re- 
covering, they all followed, and saw the woman pass up 
the front staircase and go down the back one, still bear- 
ing the box, or coffin. While on the front stairs all the 
house bells rang together in one great peal. The figure 
then went up the passage towards the dining-room door, 
which was shut, and seemed to pass through it and so 
vanished. 

Having at this date learned how to communicate psychic- 
ally, we sat for psychic communication a little later in the 
evening, to try to obtain some information as to the meaning 
of this, but could get nothing, and were all much perturbed, 
wondering what it portended. 

On 12th April W. W. Baggally, Esq., one of the Council 
of the Society for Psychical Research, came on his second 
visit to us and stayed nearly three weeks. On Sunday, 
23rd April 1911, I left the Vicarage for the church, distant 
one and a quarter miles, at about 5.20, for service at 6 p.m. 
Mr Baggally and my wife followed, leaving the Vicarage at 
5.45, the servants and children remaining on this occasion 
at the Vicarage. We returned together, arriving at the 
Vicarage about 7.45. To our surprise, all was in darkness, 
and we had to knock loudly to gain admission. At last, 
after much unlocking and unbolting, the servants and 
children opened the door, all very excited. The house was 
in darkness, as they said they had shut themselves all 
together in the kitchen, being afraid to go about the 
house. 

They informed us that half-an-hour after my wife and 
Mr Baggally left for church Ida went upstairs into the 
nursery to change her dress. While there she heard 
beautiful singing coming from the Grey Room, which is 
on the same floor. She ran downstairs with her dress in 



232 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

her hand to the other servant, Rosetta, and told her, and 
they both came upstairs to the small landing just below the 
third floor, and listened. Both heard the most beautiful 
singing coming from the Grey Room, and this continued 
for quite five minutes. It sounded like a hymn, but they 
could not distinguish the words, but the tune was that 
of the hymn, Peace, Perfect Peace. Rosetta described the 
singing as a kind of crooning or humming, very sweetly 
sung, but the words not distinguishable. 

The singing or crooning ceased, and then they heard two 
crashes coming from the room. At the first crashing sound 
they both ran downstairs, and as they ran a second crash 
was heard. They then shut themselves in the kitchen, 
together with the children, and remained there until they 
heard us knocking for admittance. Immediately we heard 
this, Mr Baggally and myself ran up to the Grey Room. 
We entered the room, the door of which was shut, together, 
and saw, to our astonishment, the wardrobe overturned 
and lying on its face in the middle of the room ; two chairs 
were also overset, and the wood frame of the washhand 
stand was partly wrenched asunder. 

Mr Baggally at once carefully examined the top of the 
wardrobe for finger-prints but was unable to find any trace 
of such. He strictly questioned the maids and put them 
on oath, but they did not vary in the slightest in their story. 
The children were outside the house when the singing and 
crashes were heard. 

On Tuesday morning, 25th April, I received a letter bear- 
ing the Cleckheaton postmark, 6.45 a.m., 24th April 1911, 
which letter I still possess, saying that my Aunt Hannah 
had died on Sunday evening at 6.15 p.m. This was 
the exact time that the maids heard the singing and 
crashes. 

I went to the funeral on Wednesday, 26th April, and 
without telling them a word of what we had experienced 
at Weston, I inquired whether aunt had been musical. The 



PREMONITIONS 233 

relatives informed me that she had been a noted singer in 
her youth and in great request at concerts and oratorios. 
I then asked if she had any favourite hymn. They at once 
answered: "Yes; Peace, Perfect Peace." I now said: 
"Did she sing it often." They replied: "Yes; every day 
for six months before she died. She was blind most of the 
time and this hymn seemed to console her in her affliction." 
I then asked : " Did she sing it towards the close of her 
life." They replied that she sang it up to the last two days 
before her death, and then added without any suggestion 
from me : " When she could no longer sing the words she 
hummed it." This was conclusive, and not until they had 
told me this did I inform them of our experience at Weston. 
I hold the originals of the following documents : — 

I hereby testify that in connection with the illness of my 
mother, Hannah Bentley, I had not communicated with the 
Rev. C. L. Tweedale previous to sending him the notice of my 
mother's death. To the best of my knowledge Mr Tweedale 
was in absolute ignorance of mother's illness. 

(Signed) Fred Bentley. 

Cleckheaton, April 26, 1911. 

On 29th April I personally testified on oath before Mr 
Baggally that I had no knowledge whatsoever of the illness 
of my aunt prior to receiving the letter on the Tuesday 
after her death. 

We the undersigned hereby testify that we were in attend- 
ance on the late Hannah Bentley during her last illness, 
and that the hymn Peace, Perfect Peace was a particular 
favourite of Hannah Bentley's during the time she lay on her 
sick bed, and that we often heard her singing it over during her 
illness. When she could no longer sing it she hummed it. 
She hummed it over, as she lay, up to the last two days before 
death. 

(Signed) Fred Bentley. 
Lily Bentley. 

Cleckheaton, April 26, 191 1. 



234 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

We hereby testify from personal knowledge that the late 
Hannah Bentley was a noted singer in her early years. She 
took a leading part in oratorios and concerts on many occasions. 

(Signed) Joshua Hodgson, 
Fred Bentley. 

On 28th April Mr Baggally carefully questioned the 
maids and took down their statements re all their experience 
of this incident, putting them on oath, which they witnessed 
on the New Testament in the usual form. The following 
is his signed statement in my journal : 

I administered the oath to Ida and Rosetta on the singing, 
and upsetting of wardrobe, etc., to-day, Friday, 28th April, 
1911. 

(Signed) W. W. Baggally. 

My wife and the servants all said that the " coffin " seen 
on 9th April 191 1 was so broad and short that it looked 
more like a box than a coffin. They particularly emphasised 
this point. At the funeral I noted with feelings of awe and 
astonishment that this was the exact description of the 
coffin I saw borne to the grave, Aunt having been stout 
and of very short stature ! ! 

There is not the slightest doubt that the approaching 
decease of my aunt was thus foreshadowed, by symbol, 
to three witnesses, fourteen days before it took place, and 
that at the exact time of her death at Cleckheaton, distant 
fifteen miles across country from Weston ; the hymn which 
my aunt sang all through her illness, and crooned up to the 
last, was heard loudly crooned or hummed in my vicarage 
at Weston by two persons ; and that immediately after- 
wards the wardrobe was flung over upon its face with a 
crash, chairs were upset, and the washhand stand partly 
broken without the intervention of human hands, and that 
this was done by psychic or supernormal means. Mr 
Baggally, after a careful discussion of the facts, declared 



PREMONITIONS 235 

that it was the most perfectly evidential case of the kind 
that he had ever heard of. 

It is often suggested, by persons who have not weighed 
the evidence, that these cases are due to telepathy. 
Telepathy does not give warning of an event weeks before it 
occurs, nor does telepathy overthrow heavy wardrobes. 

The next case concerns the passing of my dear mother, 
Mary Tweedale, and is full of that dramatic element which 
has characterised many of the spirit manifestations which 
it has been our privilege to experience, and which indicate 
an organised and intelligent attempt to give us evidence 
of the existence of spiritual beings and their interest 
in ourselves and our affairs. This and a most evident 
" guardian angel " attitude have been marked features of 
these wonderful experiences and have brought unspeakable 
consolation even in the midst of bereavement. 

On Tuesday, 22nd April 1913, shortly before 3 P.M., my 
wife was gardening. While in the act of thrusting a spade 
into the earth with her foot, to her astonishment she saw 
a large white bird come and perch upon the toe of her boot. 
Amazement kept her still for a few seconds and then she 
endeavoured to seize it quickly, but it escaped from under 
her hand and flew straight upwards like a rocketing 
pheasant, until it was lost to view in the blue sky. She 
threw down the spade and ran into the house, noting the 
time, as she passed the clock, to be five minutes to three, 
and came to me in the study. I at once said : " I don't 
think it was an ordinary bird ; let us sit and see if there is 
a message ! " 

We did so at once. As soon as communication was 
established, I said : " Was the bird a symbol ? " — " Yes." 
" Of what ? " — " Death." " Of whom ? " No answer. 
" Of someone we know ? " — " Yes." " Have you a 
message ? " — " Notice the time." The communication 
then ceased. My wife had noticed the time of the incident 
as she ran in. It was five minutes to three. We did not 



236 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

mention this incident either to the children or the servants, 
or to my mother, but most carefully kept it from them. 
On Wednesday I posted an account of the vision and message 
to Mr Wallis, Editor of Light, and to W. W. Baggally, Esq., 
one of the Council of the S.P.R., and as mother began to 
complain of a tightness on her chest, although she did not 
seem to ail much or to have a cold, and as I was much im- 
pressed by the vision and communication of Tuesday, I sent 
for Dr Galloway of Otley, and he arrived on Thursday 
morning. 

When he had concluded his examination of mother I 
awaited him in my dining-room and said : " Well, Doctor, 
how do you find the patient ? ' ' Turning quickly round upon 
me, with his hands behind his back, he replied instantly, 
without any beating about the bush : " Well, I think she 
is going to die." " To die, Doctor ! " I exclaimed. " Yes," 
he replied, " not just yet, but soon." 

He then informed me that the lung was solidifying. I 
now told him for the first time of the vision of my wife and 
of the message given us two days before. After her decease, 
when we discussed the whole affair, he acknowledged this, 
and was much impressed by it. 

Mother now took permanently to her bed, and began to 
get slowly weaker. 

Nearly a month later, on the 19th of May, several persons 
called upon me whom I had never seen or heard of before. 
They had heard of my interest in psychic things, and being 
interested themselves called on me as they passed the house. 
After a little conversation I found that some of them were 
psychics, and in the course of conversation they learned that 
mother was ill in bed. They asked if they might see her, 
and on receiving permission all went up to her room and 
chatted with her, and standing round her bed they sang 
a hymn. Before they left, one of them — a Mrs Stubbs, 
whom we had never previously seen or heard of — turned to 
my wife and said : "It has just been given to me clair- 



PREMONITIONS 237 

audiently that she will be found dead in bed within a five. 
I think this is five weeks not five months." She then 
repeated this to me and to the others. 

I laughed it off, saying : "Oh no; mother is better," 
for she had appeared much brighter for some days previously. 
Needless to say, we did not mention this to mother, the 
servants, or the children. Time passed and we had quite 
forgotten the prediction. 

On the 24th of June 1913, exactly thirty-five days — five 
weeks — after it was uttered, our new servant maid, Marion 
Thompson, awoke very early in the morning, and thinking 
it was time to get up, roused the other servant, Alice. Earlier 
in the night she had been very restless, and told Alice that 
she had a presentiment that something was going to happen. 
They looked at the clock and found it five minutes to three 
a.m., and so went to sleep again. At eight a.m. Alice took 
the usual cup of tea to mother's bedroom door and, no one 
answering, went in. Mother was lying there, but did not 
answer. Alice gave the alarm and we all rushed into the 
room, only to find mother stretched dead in bed, exactly 
five weeks after the prediction of the igth May I Wrapped 
in slumber, I had not heard 

The silent oar 
That parts the silent river, when the soul 
Is ferried to its bourne. 

but the approach of the barque had been signalled. 

Had the servants known of the prediction they would 
probably have realised what was happening when they were 
thus awakened at the dawning of the day ; but they knew 
nothing, and so lay down again. The interment took 
place in the family vault at Crawshawbooth, distant some 
forty miles by rail. We had taken rooms for the night at 
a local hotel, but as we were at the graveside a message came 
from people residing in the house where we used to live 
when resident in Crawshawbooth, asking us to stay with 



238 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

them. We sat talking of old times until far into the 
morning hours, and at last, when we retired, we were shown 
into mother's old bedroom, into which I had not been for 
thirty-one years. As we crossed the threshold, a clock 
was ticking on the mantelpiece, and on going up to it the 
time shown on the dial was five minutes to three ! ! 

Such a train of events is beyond the possibility of chance 
or coincidence. 

The third case concerns the passing of my brother-in-law, 
John Burnett. 

On Sunday, 16th November 1913, myself, wife, three 
daughters and son were all dining at 1.25 p.m. My 
wife saw a large cloud of mist form inside the room near 
the window. This gradually consolidated into the form of 
a large coffin, with nameplate, on which she could distinguish 
no name, but the plates on the coffin had a vine-leaf pattern. 
We others listened in silence, seeing nothing ourselves. The 
vision then faded, only to be followed in a few minutes by 
another as we still sat at table. My wife again saw a cloud 
of mist form and this became a round object and then 
formed itself into a big capital letter C. She then saw what 
seemed like a large bowl of water in which the water was 
leaping in waves. The letter C then became half immersed 
in the water, and the vision faded. This vision seemed 
to indicate the passing of some seafaring man. 

On Wednesday, 26th November, we were again at dinner, 
when my wife saw a black cloud form, which again took 
the form of a coffin. 

On Christmas night, after the usual family gathering and 
party, a little before 10 p.m. it was suggested that we should 
sit for psychic communication, and we did so in a good 
light. At 10 p.m. we got a message about death which, 
as it seemed rather out of place on a merry evening, caused 
us to bring the sitting to an end and continue the usual 
intercourse of a family party. 

Next day, Boxing Day, 26th December, we got a telegram 



PREMONITIONS 239 

saying that my wife's brother Jack had dropped dead the 
night before ! My wife found that he had dropped dead 
of heart failure at 10 p.m. on Christmas Day. She had 
nothing to do with the arrangements for burial, but on 
seeing the coffin, found that the coffin plate was ornamented 
with a vine-leaf pattern exactly as she had seen on 14th 
November, some six weeks previously. 

The death of John Burnett is announced in The 
Sunderland Echo for 26th and 27th December. : 

On Christmas Day (suddenly), John Burnett. Aged 47. 

Here are the points to be noted : 

Vision on 14th November indicating, by the well-known 
symbol of a coffin, an approaching decease, accompanied by 
two other symbols : 1. The leaping waves ; 2. the capital C. 

The furniture of the coffin is seen of vine-leaf pattern. 

Fulfilment.- — -My wife's brother, John Burnett, a ship's 
officer and a seafaring man for nearly twenty years (the 
leaping waves), dies suddenly on Christmas Day (the capital 
letter C) and is buried in a coffin the furniture of which is 
ornamented with a vine-leaf pattern. 

Vision of 26th November. — A partial repetition of the 
first one. 

Telegram of his death reaches us on the 26th of the 
month. 

Psychic message received by us referring to death on 
Christmas night at 10 p.m. John Burnett drops dead at 
that exact moment in Sunderland, some one hundred miles 
away. Six persons, including myself, are witnesses to the 
truth of this account. 

The passing of my uncle, Joshua Hodgson, was likewise 
impressively foretold to us. 

On 16th January 1917 a personality, giving the name of 
my Aunt Esther, who "died" seventeen years previously, 
manifested to my wife and self, informing us that her 
husband Joshua would soon pass over to the other side 



240 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

and that they would then be both together in heaven. 
This personality had never come to us before. I at 
once wrote the account of this in the form of a letterette, 
which I sealed up, placing the stamp and address on the 
back of the actual letter sheet so that it might bear the 
official date of posting, and sending a covering letter with it 
to my cousin, telling her not to open the sealed letter 
until I gave her permission. Three weeks after (6th 
February) I got a hasty post card saying that my uncle, 
her father, was taken seriously ill. I wrote by next post, 
telling her to open the sealed letter. She replied, saying 
that she had done so and noted its contents, but had not 
told her father, as the doctor had said he was to be kept 
quiet. She went on to say that a remarkable thing had 
happened that afternoon. As she stood at the foot of his 
bed, suddenly he cried out that he saw his wife (page 137), 
and described her as looking as she did twenty years before. 
He directed my cousin's attention to the figure and asked if 
she could not see it. She saw nothing. On 24th February 
Aunt Esther again manifested to us both and gave the 
message : " Friday is the day." I sent this message also in 
a letterette. bearing stamp and official date on the back. 
The Friday following dropsy set in and uncle began rapidly 
to sink, and died in the night of the succeeding Friday, his 
mortal body being interred at the Church of White Chapel, 
Cleckheaton, on 21st March 1917. 

My cousin has the officially stamped predictions and I 
have her post-cards and letters, and also her signed account 
of the whole affair, so that this case is evidenced beyond any 
possibility of dispute. 

Most of the witnesses in these four cases have solemnly 
attested these facts on oath, and are prepared to do so 
before a notary in due legal form. 

If there were no other cases on record but these four they 
would be sufficient to establish the fact that spiritual beings 
from another sphere take an intelligent interest in, and are 



PREMONITIONS 241 

able to anticipate, the events and affairs of this our earthly 
life. When thousands of other cases covering a score of 
different phases of spirit manifestation are added to them 
it will be readily perceived how there is available an 
accumulation of proofs that no reasonable man can with- 
stand. 

There are many cases where a symbol or symbolical action 
is used to convey information of the approaching event. 
But students will recognise this as of frequent occurrence 
in the Old and New Testaments. A noteworthy instance 
is recorded in the recently published Memories of Sixty 
Years, by the Earl of Warwick (Cassell & Co.), and appeared 
in Light for 15th December 19 17 : 

My father, though a very delicate man and much confined 
to the castle, never saw an apparition of any kind there, and 
was decidedly sceptical. 

But once, when away from Warwick and staying in furnished 
rooms at St Leonard's, he had an experience that affected him 
considerably. He had gone to sleep one night rather early, 
and awakened at midnight to find a soft, mysterious light in 
the room. It lit the end of his bed, where he saw a figure 
partly draped with a red scarf and holding a javelin. As my 
father gazed the figure poised and threw the javelin, which 
apparently passed through the wall above my father's head. 

When his valet entered in the morning with hot water he 
noticed that the man was looking very perturbed, and asked 
him what was the matter. " Something very sad, my lord," 
was the reply. " The landlady's daughter, a young girl, who 
sleeps in the room next to this, has died suddenly in the night." 
To me the special interest of this account, which I had from 
my father's lips, lies in his eminently practical nature and mind. 
The supernatural had no hold on him. 

The cases quoted so far have related to information of 
approaching " passings." These are often given with great 
clearness, as they are important events, not merely to us 
but also to the inhabitants of the spirit world. If it be 
objected that it is beneath the dignity of the inhabitants 

Q 



242 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of the spirit world to meddle with such matters, or that 
such things are "trivial" or " unspiritual," or "undesir- 
able," one can only reply that similar things are to be 
found in the Bible and that even Christ's passing was dis- 
cussed with him by two spirits of the departed (Luke ix. 
31): 

The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above 
his lord. 

As I have said before, it must not be thought that every 
apparition or psychic experience denotes a passing. 

Only a small proportion have this significance, the rest 
are evidential in varying ways and degrees, Here is a case 
which distinctly foreshadowed wedding bells (see also 

page 135)- 

It was related to me by my friend the Vicar of , who 

has seen service as a missionary in India, holds a responsible 
position, and took honours at the University. He is an 
astronomer, accustomed to accurate observation, a well- 
known writer on physical culture, and a man of acute mind. 

Family reasons cause him to withhold his name for the 
present, but some friends of ours have had the same narra- 
tive independently from his wife. He writes : 

When curate of a small town in North Wales in September, 
1892, I was much interested in astronomy, and had been for 
days absorbed in instrumental questions. I spent the evening 
with friends and walked home between eleven and midnight, 
still pondering the telescope problem. On reaching the door 
of my lodgings I saw the planet Jupiter appearing, and deter- 
mined to observe it. I got out my telescope in the entrance hall 
and then crossed over to a room which was empty save for a 
table, some chairs and my telescope stand. To get the afore- 
said stand I opened the door of the room, which was in dark- 
ness, made two steps into the room, and stopped short with 
my hands stretched out, groping my way. Suddenly I saw, 
immediately under my outstretched hands, an iron bedstead 
with bedding complete. Its height was somewhat above the 



PREMONITIONS 243 

level of my knees. The head of the bed was the most distinct, 
towards the foot it seemed to shade off into the darkness. 
Although the room was in darkness I could see the bed per- 
fectly distinct and clear. It never occurred to me at the 
moment to wonder how I could see it at all. 

A figure was in the bed, and I noted the white pillows, also 
the white sheet turned down over the breast, the line being un- 
usually low and very straight, as though the sheet had been 
carefully drawn and the occupant had lain very still. Counter- 
pane a dull grey. The figure in the bed was that of a girl 
apparently about twenty-three. The outline of her features, 
which were of a regular type, was clearly seen. Her black hair 
and eyebrows were very noticeable against the white pillow. 
She lay on her back, but her face was turned to one side, 
making the profile very distinct. Her left arm, which was 
nearest to me, had fallen over the side of the bed. The fore- 
arm was long and slight, but the most noticeable thing was the 
hand, especially in the position which it had taken. It was 
peculiarly small for so long an arm, and had a particular fine- 
ness of shape which I cannot describe. It was a most remark- 
able hand, such as I had certainly never seen before. There 
was a most noticeable sudden drop at the wrist, the hand 
being almost at right angles with the arm. I noted all this 
in a few seconds, then was out of the room like a flash, closing 
the door quietly, and went upstairs in a towering rage. I 
went at once to my fellow-lodger's room and said : " That old 
fool" (i.e. our worthy landlady) "has put some one of her 
visitors to sleep in the empty room downstairs, and I nearly 
fell over her in the dark." We exchanged some critical re- 
marks on landladies in general, and I retired for the night. 
Next day I asked the little servant, without any show of being 
put out, about the matter, who was in the room the night 
before. She was evidently amazed. I then tackled the 
landlady ; she was equally astonished. Finally I taxed her 
point blank with having put some friend to sleep in the room. 
She then requested me to look through the bedrooms in the 
house. I found there was no such bedstead as I had seen in 
the house, and I finally convinced myself that Mrs Hughes 
was speaking the truth. It slowly dawned upon me that 
there could not have been a material bedstead in that empty 
room. I had led a singularly solitary life, and had never 
seen any person like the lady I saw in this vision. 



244 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

He went out soon afterwards to India as a missionary, 
and during his stay in India formed a corresponding ac- 
quaintance with a lady in England who was a candidate 
for mission work. This led to a romantic proposal, and 
she went out to India in 1897, to be married to him, he 
never having seen her personally, and on her arrival they 
were married. He goes on to say : 

A few days after our marriage I came into her room from a 
walk. My wife was lying asleep on her bed. She was in the 
exact position taken by the girl of my vision. She lay on her 
back, with her face half turned to the light, her left arm over 
the side of the bed, her hand dropped at the wrist, the small 
and remarkable hand. The shape of the hand, its size, the 
slimness of the forearm — the curious and most noticeable drop 
of the wrist, the black hair and black eyebrows, and the out- 
line of the features were identically the same, no discrepancy. 
I have never seen any other hand and arm like it. 

This marriage — literally " made in heaven " — was thus 
foreshadowed more than five years before the parties saw 
each other. It proved a most happy one. 

We now come to information communicated in dreams, 
and here there are so very many cases of undoubted 
authenticity, the evidence is so full and extensive as to 
put the fact that man does often acquire information in 
dreams in a supernormal manner beyond all possible doubt. 

For this evidence to be good it must contain two essentials : 

1. The information must have previously been unknown 
to the recipient. 

2. The dream communication must have been related to 
some other person before the communication is verified, so 
as to form evidence. 

The first instance we will notice contains not only these 
essentials, but belongs to a remarkable class, instances of 
which are very rare, but of which I have more than once 
had personal experience, in which two persons, directly or 
indirectly, partake in the dream communication. Here 



PREMONITIONS 245 

the participation is indirect, but none the less valuable and 
remarkable, for the husband heard his wife utter the words 
in her sleep, thus verifying them and being in possession of 
the " clou " of the dream before his wife awoke to inform 
him, and giving an almost unique evidential value to the 
case. It is furnished by Mr and Mrs Donaldson, of 
Devereaux House, Daleham Gardens, Fitzjohn's Avenue, 
N.W. (S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. v., page 340.) 

On Sunday morning, the 29th September, 1878, I roused 
my husband by speaking in my sleep in a moaning and dis- 
tressed manner. I said, " Oh, B , what is the matter 

with your face," and then began to sob. My husband woke 
me and inquired the cause of my distress. I said, "I saw 

B (mentioning the name of the nurse) standing in the 

nursery with her back turned to me, and when I spoke to her 
and she half turned round I saw the side of her face all cut and 
bruised. Hence my distressed inquiry as to the cause of the 
injury." 

That Sunday evening she did not appear as usual at family 
prayers, and upon inquiring the reason of her absence the 

cook replied, " B has met with an accident, ma'am, and 

has fallen out of the Metropolitan train." I rushed upstairs, 
and there, in precisely the same position as I had seen her in 

my dream, stood B with the side of her face cut and 

bruised as I had seen it, and without thinking of the coincid- 
ence at that moment I said, " Oh, B , what is the matter 

with your face," and as I said the words the whole dream 
flashed vividly across my memory. 

Agnes E. Donaldson. 

On that Sunday morning I heard my wife distinctly say 

in her sleep, " Oh, B , what is the matter with your face," 

and then I roused her. We thought no more' of this until 
after the accident and on the following evening. 

A. B. Donaldson. 

We have both the clearest remembrance of the dream and 
its fulfilment. 

Here is an instance where the information is conveyed 
by symbol in a dream, and yet in such a remarkable manner 



246 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

that it at once shows the definite planning on the part of 
a surviving intelligence and destroys the argument for 
telepathy direct or latent at once. This case is taken from 
Phantasms of the Living, vol. i., page 365, and might have 
been specially designed in all its circumstances to refute 
the argument which seeks to establish that these things are 
the result of direct telepathy before death, or latent telepathy 
which makes itself felt after a time, and thus endeavours 
to dispose of the idea of surviving personality (page 128). 

The case is briefly as follows : — About March, 1857, Mrs 
Menneer in England dreamt that she saw her brother, whose 
whereabouts she did not know, standing headless at the foot 
of the bed with his head lying on a coffin by his side. The 
dream was at once mentioned. It afterwards appeared that 
at about that time the head of her brother, a Mr Wellington, 
was actually cut off by Chinese at Sarawak. On this case 
Mr Gurney remarks, "This dream, if it is to be telepathically 
explained, must apparently have been due to the last flash 
of thought in the brother's consciousness." 

This case was inserted in Phantasms of the Living under 
the idea that, as Mr Gurney explains, the dream of the 
headless body, the coffin, and the head was the result of 
telepathic transference of the last flash of consciousness as 
the man was decapitated by an unexpected blow. 

Let us see what follows. At a later date Sir James 
Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, wrote to Mr Wellington's 
friend, and enclosed a cutting from the Straits Times of 
21st March 1857, afterwards published in the London Times 
for 29th April 1857. In the letter Sir James says : " Poor 
Wellington's remains were consumed (by the Chinese), his 
head, borne off in triumph, alone attesting his murder." 

The Straits Times says : " The head was given up on 
the following day." Therefore the head alone was buried 
by his friends, as the body had been eaten. 

Now we see the true meaning and significance of this 
notable dream. 



PREMONITIONS 247 

Mrs Menneer sees the headless body of her brother 
standing at the foot of her bed with a coffin by his side 
and his head lying on the coffin. Evidently the train of 
ideas here conveyed could not have been flashed by the 
man's mind before death, for then he could have had no 
idea of the fate reserved for his head alone, and that it 
alone would be buried (as is indicated by the head lying 
on the coffin). The whole thing shows that the information 
came from his surviving personality after death. 

We come now to what is perhaps the classical instance, 
in English history, at any rate, of the forecasting of an 
important event in a dream. 

It is the remarkable dream of Mr John Williams, then 
in Cornwall, of the assassination of Spencer Perceval 
eleven days before that event. This same account, with 
slight verbal differences, is printed also in Walpole's life 
of Perceval. Mr Walpole says that it is taken from a 
statement attested and signed by Mr Williams in the 
presence of the Rev. Thomas Fisher and Mr Charles 
Prideaux Bruce, and was by the latter given to Walpole 
himself. In 1874 Mr C. R. Fox, who was fourteen years 
of age at the time and well remembered the dream being 
related to his father, in a letter to Mr Hensleigh Wedg- 
wood, says : " it is indubitable that Mr Williams related 
the dream before the Chancellor's death." Thus in our 
own day and generation this forecast of nearly a century 
ago has been verified. 

SUNHILL, 

December, 1832. 

SOME ACCOUNT OF A DREAM WHICH OCCURRED TO JOHN WILLIAMS, 
IN THE COUNTY OF CORNWALL, IN THE YEAR l8l2 ; TAKEN 
FROM HIS OWN MOUTH AND NARRATED BY HIM AT VARIOUS 
TIMES TO SEVERAL OF HIS FRIENDS 

Being desired to write out the particulars of a remarkable 
dream which I had in the year 18 12, before I do so I think it 



248 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

may be proper for me to say that at the time my attention 
was fully occupied with affairs of my own — the superintendence 
of some very extensive mines in Cornwall being entrusted to 
me. Thus I had no leisure to pay any attention to political 
matters, and hardly knew at that time who formed the Ad- 
ministration of the country. It was, therefore, scarcely 
possible that my own interest in the subject should vhave had 
any share in suggesting the circumstances which presented 
themselves to my imagination. It was, in truth, a subject 
which never occurred to my waking thoughts. 

My dream was as follows : 

About the second or third day of May, 1812, I dreamed 
that I was in the lobby of the House of Commons (a place 
well known to me). A small man dressed in a blue coat 
and white waistcoat entered, and immediately I saw a person 
whom I had observed on my first entrance, dressed in a snuff 
coloured coat with metal buttons, take a pistol from under 
his coat and present it at the little man above mentioned. 
The pistol was discharged and the ball entered under the left 
breast of the person at whom it was directed. I saw the blood 
issue from the place where the ball had struck him, his coun- 
tenance instantly altered, and he fell to the ground. Upon 
inquiring who the sufferer might be I was informed he was the 
Chancellor. I understood him to be Mr Perceval, who was 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I further saw the murderer 
laid hold of by several of the gentlemen in the room. Upon 
waking I told the particulars above related to my wife ; she 
treated the matter lightly, and desired me to go to sleep, 
saying it was only a dream. I soon fell asleep again, and again 
the dream presented itself with precisely the same circum- 
stances. After waking a second time and stating the matter 
again to my wife she only repeated her request that I would 
compose myself and dismiss the subject from my mind. 
Upon my falling asleep the third time the same dream, without 
any alteration, was repeated, and I awoke as on the former 
occasion in great agitation. So much alarmed and impressed 
was I with the circumstances above related that I felt much 
doubt whether it was not my duty to take a journey to London 
and communicate upon the subject with the party principally 
concerned. Upon this point I consulted with some friends 
whom I met on business at the Godolphin mine on the following 
day. After having stated to them the particulars of the dream 



PREMONITIONS 



249 



itself and what were my feelings in relation to it they dis- 
suaded me from my purpose, saying that I might expose 
myself to contempt and vexation, or to be taken up as a fanatic. 
Upon this I said no more, but anxiously watched the news- 
papers every evening as the post arrived. 

On the evening of the 13th of May (as far as I recollect) 
no account of Mr Perceval's death was in the newspapers, 
but my son, returning from Truro, came in a hurried manner 
into the room where I was sitting and exclaimed, " Oh, father, 
your dream has come true. Mr Perceval has been shot in the 
lobby of the House of Commons. There is an account come 
from London to Truro written after the newspapers were 
printed." 

The fact was that Mr Perceval was assassinated on the 
evening of the nth. Some business soon after called me to 
London, and in one of the printing shops I saw a drawing for 
sale representing the place and the circumstances which 
attended Mr Perceval's death. I purchased it, and upon a 
careful examination I found it to coincide in all respects with 
the scene which had passed to my imagination in the dream. 
The colours of the dresses and buttons of the assassin's coat, 
the white waistcoat of Mr Perceval, spot of blood upon it, 
the countenances and attitudes of the parties present, were 
exactly what I had dreamed. The singularity of the case when 
mentioned among my friends and acquaintances naturally 
made it a subject of conversation in London, and in con- 
sequence my friend, the late Mr Renney, was requested by 
some of the Commissioners of the Navy that they might be 
permitted to hear the circumstances from myself. Two of 
them accordingly met me at Mr Renney's house, and to them 
I detailed at the time the particulars then fresh in my memory, 
which formed the subject of the above statement. 

I forbear to make any comment on the above narrative 
further than to declare solemnly that it is a faithful account 
of facts as they actually occurred. 

(Signed) John Williams. 

The following is a very remarkable story. The gentle- 
man who relates it, Mr C. F. Fleet, of 26 Grosvenor Square, 
Gunnersbury, was known to Mr Gurney. Mr Fleet gave 
this remarkable account to Mr Gurney, saying that he was 



250 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

ready to swear to the truth of every detail, and that the 
account was a plain record of facts, and in no way em- 
bellished (S.P.R., vol. v., page 326). 

In the year 1868 I was the third mate of the sailing ship 
Persian Empire, of London, homeward bound from Adelaide 
to London with a full cargo of wood, etc. 

We had lost two men who had deserted the ship and gone 
up to the gold fields, hands were scarce in that city, and we 
thought the ship would have to make a passage home short of 
two men, but luckily the next day before we meant to sail a 
man came on board saying he was most anxious to ship and 
get home. 

The captain was struck with his appearance, which was 
fine, respectable, and indicative of bravery, and as he also 
could show a V.G. (very good) discharge from his last ship 
the captain agreed to put him on our articles. He was also 
the recipient of a gold medal from the Royal Humane Society 
for gallantry in saving life. The man, who gave the name of 
Cleary, went ashore with the captain to the shipping office, 
where he was put on the articles, being told to join the next 
day at 6 a.m. 

He, however, failed to put in an appearance, so the captain 
sent me ashore to look him up. 

After searching in vain for a long time I turned to go on 
board, and when returning to~ the ship I found him walking 
about in a most dejected manner and looking very miserable. 
I asked him why he had not joined, and I could see from his 
countenance that something was troubling him. By a little 
persuasion, however, I induced him to come on board. On 
the way down to the ship we chatted freely and pleasantly 
on different topics, and after a while his look of dejection 
entirely passed away, and the man seemed himself again. 

Once mention was made concerning the qualities of our 
ship, the Persian Empire, by Cleary asking me if she was 
staunch and a good seaboat, at the same time adding in a 
peculiar tone of voice that he hoped she would carry him safely 
home. I said she was everything that could be expected, 
was only five years old, and on the first letter at Lloyd's (Ai ). 
This seemed to satisfy him, and as we had by this time arrived 
alongside the ship we jumped on board. 



PREMONITIONS 251 

One night about a week after sailing we had a slight spell 
of dirty weather, for it blew a hard gale from the westward 
with a high following sea. I had the middle watch, 12 to 4, 
and Cleary, who was in my watch, was taking his turn at the 
wheel, and as I chanced to be standing near the compass at 
the same time he thus spoke to me. 

"Mr Fleet." 

" Well," said I, " what is it, Cleary ? " 

" Why, sir, I would like to explain to you how it was I 
failed to join the ship on the morning I should have done so." 

" What was the reason ? " I answered. 

"Well, sir, after I left the captain I went to my lodgings 
to put my things together and settle a few matters of business, 
but was kept so late that I had to turn in before finishing 
what I had in hand, and so had to leave it till the morning. 
Do you know, sir — here he lowered his voice and became quite 
mysterious — I had a dream that night, and a very ugly and 
extraordinary one it was, too. Do you believe in dreams, 
sir ? " 

"Well," I answered, " I cannot say that I do or do not. 
I have known some astounding ones come true." 

" Ah, sir, that's just what's troubling me," he said, and 
his face grew pale and great beads of perspiration came on 
his forehead. " But I'll just tell you what I dreamed, sir, 
and then you will see. On my way to my lodgings I could 
think of nothing but the ship I had just joined, and which 
was going to take me home. As was quite natural, I fell asleep 
thinking of her, and at last dreamt that the Persian Empire 
was off the pitch of Cape Horn, and that she, on Christmas 
morning, was in a very heavy gale and a high sea. Well, sir, 
I, with the rest of my watch, was ordered to secure a boat 
hanging in davits over the side. I got into the boat, the rest 
of the watch remaining on deck, and in the middle of the work 
a most fearful sea broke over us, washing overboard me and 
another hand, and we were both drowned. I remember no 
more, sir, and I woke up, but I cannot get that dream out of 
my head." 

I told him not to allow his mind to be troubled by such 
nonsense, and tried to laugh him out of his fears, but he 
seemed so deeply impressed with the vividness of the dream 
that I failed in my object. 

Soon after this the weather cleared up, but only for a short 



252 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

time, as we fell in with another gale with violent snow and 
hail squalls. One night, when not far from Cape Horn, it was 
my first watch, 8 to 12, Mr Douglas, the chief officer, being 
in charge of the deck. The rest of the watch, with two ex- 
ceptions, those being the man at the wheel and the hand on 
the lookout, were either asleep aft or standing by for orders j 
amongst the former was Cleary. I heard a loud cry, and on 
my going down to the main deck to ascertain the cause I found 
Cleary looking very pale, and evidently much upset about 
something, I learnt that it was he that had called out, and 
on my asking him the cause he told me that he had had a 
repetition of the dream. We had great difficulty in calming 
him, but at last he got a little quieter, yet kept muttering, 
" I know it will come true." 

The next morning was Christmas Day. The wind was 
still blowing very hard, and although it was our watch below 
from 8 a.m. until 12 noon, yet the chief officer and I had to 
remain on deck, as the second officer was too unwell to leave 
his berth. This came rather hard upon us as we had already 
stood eight hours watch that night ; however, at eight bells 
(8 o'clock) Mr Douglas went below to the captain and reported 
the weather as still being bad and the barometer on the 
fall. 

After a while he came on deck again and told me that 
the captain had given him orders to secure the boat hanging 
in the davits over the port quarter in the event of the sea 
increasing. 

When I heard this order I could not help thinking of Cleary 
and his dream, at the same time feeling a presentiment that 
something might happen. However, duty is duty, and must 
be performed. The sea increased considerably, and began to 
break on board with great force, so I sent forward to turn 
the hands out. They one and all obeyed me with the exception 
of Cleary, who hung back. I called and asked him why he 
did not come out with the rest of the hands. On my receiving 
no reply I went right into the forecastle. He was sitting on 
his chest, his face buried in his hands, to all appearances 
completely overcome. 

I took a seat beside him, inquiring what was the matter. 
At first he would not answer, but after a little while he again 
referred to the dream, saying in a miserable tone, his face still 
buried in his hands, " Oh, sir, I feel it is about to come true 



PREMONITIONS 253 

now," giving this as his reason for not coming on deck with 
the other men. In answer to my question as to whether he 
would go to his duty, he replied, he would not. Then I said 
he must at any rate go with me to the captain and be put in 
the official log for refusal of duty, unless he changed his mind. 
This he said he had determined not to do, so he went to the 
captain, who, after gently persuading him to do what was 
required of him like a man, but all to no purpose, produced 
the log book, and I was told to tell Mr Douglas to come and 
witness the entry. After the captain had made the entry and 
had read it over to Cleary, who had answered to its being 
correct, the chief officer took the pen to sign his name. Whilst 
doing so Cleary, in an excited tone of voice, said, ' I will go 
to my duty, for now I know the other man relating to my 
dream," at the same time looking at Mr Douglas, who looked 
at Cleary and then at me as much as to say, ' ' What does it 
all mean ? " Whilst going on deck I told the chief officer 
of the dream ; he laughed at the idea of his being the man 
meant in it. I had a strange foreboding, and it was with no 
cheerful heart that I went on deck. On our arrival there we 
found the rest of the hands waiting for orders about the boat. 
The duty that laid before us was to turn her up clear of the 
seas, with her keel outwards, and to do this we had to pass 
a pair of grips or broad rope bands around her, then to hook 
on a tackle made fast in the mizzen rigging which, when hauled 
taut, would turn her up. Cleary jumped into the boat to 
pass the grips around her, and Mr Douglas got over the side 
for the purpose of handing me the grips from Cleary, also to 
overhaul the davit falls, which have to be eased up a little. 
The chief officer was holding on with one hand to an iron rail 
running round the quarter deck, and was in the act of passing 
the grips to me when the man at the wheel, by his bad steering, 
luffed the ship into the wind, and on my looking to windward 
I saw a very heavy sea coming up which, for the moment, I 
thought would capsize the ship, and as a warning to all hands 
I sang out, " Look out, men, here it comes." We who were 
able to do so rushed to the mizzen mast and there held on for 
dear life, but unfortunately Mr Douglas and Cleary were 
unable to do so in time. The sea struck the ship on the star- 
board side with very great force, nearly throwing her .on her 
beam ends, flooding the decks and doing much damage, 
besides washing overboard these two men. The sea caught 



254 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

the boat, turning her completely over, breaking the stout 
iron davits as one would a match, and she, with Cleary clinging 
to her, was swept away. Mr Douglas held on to the iron rail 
trying in vain to get on board, but the rush of water was too 
powerful for him, and with a cry for help and with a look of 
agony the poor fellow dropped overboard. 

After the sea had somewhat gone off the quarter deck 
I ran up into the mizzen top to see what had become of the 
poor fellows. Mr Douglas was vainly trying to get on a hen- 
coop which had been washed overboard from the quarter deck 
full of fowl ; a lifebuoy was also close to him, we having 
thrown out two. Cleary was taking off his oilskin coat, 
keeping himself up by treading water meanwhile, and then 
tried to reach Mr Douglas, who could not swim and was, 
moreover, impeded by too much clothing, it being bitterly cold 
weather. Cleary must have been a most powerful swimmer 
to swim in such a sea, for he managed to reach Mr Douglas, 
and then tried to help him to get on the hencoop. Shortly 
after they met a heavy sea came sweeping along which over- 
whelmed them, for after it had passed away I saw them no 
more. So, poor fellows, they died together. 

We arrived in London two months after the accident and 
three months after leaving Adelaide. 

Robert Browning, the poet, attests the following . fore- 
cast of his wife's sister's death in a dream in which his 
wife appeared to her sister. He writes : 

Tuesday, July 21, 1863. 

Miss Barrett (Arabel) told me yesterday that she had been 
much agitated by a dream which happened to her the night 
before, Sunday, July 19. She saw her, and asked, "When 
shall I be with you?" The reply was, "Dearest, in five 
years," whereupon Arabel awoke. She knew in her dream 
that it was not to the living she spoke. 

Five years afterwards, less one month, Miss Barrett 
died, and of this event Browning again writes : 

I had forgotten the date of the dream, and supposed it was > 
only three years, and that two had still to run. 



PREMONITIONS 255 

Here the forecast is five years ahead, and is accurately 
fulfilled. 

In the following case there is a transference of a view 
or scene over a space of several thousand miles, the informa- 
tion conveyed in the dream or vision being afterwards 
accurately verified. It is taken from Proceedings S.P.R., 
vol. v., page 420, and is well attested. 

From Miss Richardson, 47 Bedford Gardens, Kensing- 
ton, W. 

The writer (of the enclosed) is the wife of a shopkeeper 
who told me the occurrence some years ago, then with more 
detail, as it was fresh in her memory, and her husband can 
vouch for the facts told him at the time and the strange un- 
canny effect of the dream on her mind for some time after. 

From Mrs Green to Miss Richardson. 

Newry, 2.1st First Month, 1885. 

Dear Friend, — In compliance with thy request I give thee 
the particulars of my dream. 

I saw two respectably dressed females driving alone in a 
vehicle like a mineral water cart. Their horse stopped at a 
water to drink, but as there was no footing he lost his balance, 
and in trying to recover it he plunged right in. With the 
shock the two women stood up and shouted for help, and their 
hats rose off their heads, and as all were going down I turned 
away, saying : " Was there no one at all to help them," upon 
which I awoke, and my husband asked me what was the 
matter. I related the full dream to him, and he asked me if 
I knew them. I said I did not, and thought I had never seen 
either of them. The impression of the dream and the trouble 
it brought was over me all the day. I remarked to my son 
it was the anniversary of his birthday, and my own also, the 
tenth of the first month, and this is why I remember the date. 
The following third month I got a letter and newspaper from 
my brother in Australia, named Allen, letting me know the 
sad trouble that had befallen him in the loss, by drowning, 
of one of his daughters and her companion. Thou wilt see 
by the description given of it in the paper how the event 
corresponded with my dream. My niece was born in 
Australia, and I never saw her. 



256 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

From the Inglewood Advertiser (Queensland, N.S.W.), 
Friday evening, January n, 1878. 

A dreadful accident occurred in the neighbourhood of 
Wederburn on Wednesday last resulting in the death of two 
women named Lehey and Allen. It appeared that the deceased 
were driving into Wederburn in a spring cart in the direction 
of Kinypaniel when they attempted to water their horse at 
a dam on the boundary of Torpichen Station. The dam was 
ten or twelve feet deep in one spot, and into this deep hole 
they must have inadvertently driven, for Mr W. M'Kechnie, 
manager .of the Torpichen Station, upon going to the dam 
some hours afterwards discovered the spring cart and horse 
under the water, and two women's hats floating on the surface. 
. . . The dam was searched and the bodies of the two women, 
clasped in each other's arms, recovered. 

I now come to three most impressive cases — one pro- 
phetic — which happened in my own house and among my 
own family and to which I myself am a witness. 

The first occurred on Monday, 29th April 1912. Soon 
after seven in the morning and long before either letters 
or papers arrived (they usually come about eight), my wife 
told me on being awakened by me that she had had a most 
vivid dream thrice repeated. She awoke from the first 
dream hearing the clock strike 3 a.m., then slept again, and 
again dreamed the same dream. Again awoke about 5 a.m., 
and again slept and dreamed the same dream. She dreamt 
that she saw Bonnot the notorious Paris bandit, and that 
he was in a house with police all round the house firing at 
him. She then saw the police come up to the house with 
a haycart, and they surrounded the house. Then Bonnot 
was on a bed and she saw the police all fire at him and 
" he was riddled with bullets." She then saw his body 
thrown on the front part of a motor car and taken to the 
police-staton. I laughed at this recital— for Bonnot had 
just killed the Chief of the Paris Police and several other 
persons who had attempted to capture him, saying : "I 
am afraid he will yet give them a long run for their money," 



PREMONITIONS 257 

and she joined in the laugh and we thought no more about 
it. At 8 a.m. the letters arrived, but no newspaper was 
among them, it evidently not having caught the post 
In such cases it was generally delivered at 5 p.m. We had 
thus had no news since Saturday. 

After breakfast I went to Otley, distant three miles. 
Not until I had been down some time did I notice the 
posters, then, to my amazement, I saw the notice : " Bonnot 
fusilladed." I could scarcely believe my own eyes as I 
looked at it. I then read the account and found that it 
tallied almost exactly with my wife's dream ! ! 

On arriving home in the evening my wife and the servants 
met me excitedly at the door, she having the paper and 
crying : " It is all here ! It is all here ! " Before the 
newspaper arrived by the five-o'clock post my wife had told 
her dream to the servants, and their signed statement is 
in my journal. The fusillading of Bonnot happened in 
Paris on Sunday about the middle of the day, and was 
revealed in a dream to my wife at 3 a.m. next morning. 
No papers are printed on Sunday, and the first news was 
contained in the morning papers of Monday. All the details 
of this thrice-repeated dream were told to me by her shortly 
after 7 a.m., long before letters had entered the house or 
she had risen from bed, and nearly ten hours before the 
newspaper arrived. How marvellous was this revelation 
will be perceived on comparison with the following. The 
facts of Bonnot 's fusillading were : 

1. He took refuge in a house which was first surrounded 
by soldiers and police, who fired at it from a distance with 
rifles. 

2. The police then used a cart heaped up with faggots 
behind which they sheltered and so approached the house. 

3. Finally they stormed the house and entered a bed- 
room where Bonnot lay between straw mattresses, and all 
fired a volley at him. He was hit by many bullets. 

4. Picking him up in a dying state, they tied him hand 



258 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

and foot, put him into a motor car and took him to the 
police station, where he died twenty minutes later ! ! 

This supernormal communication of information con- 
cerning passing and future events to my wife is a most 
arresting and an awe-inspiring thing, one that I can never 
think about without being profoundly impressed. An 
instance when the information was imparted clairaudiently 
by a vision which she saw occurred on 28th July 1916 at 
11 p.m. As we were retiring for the night my wife saw a 
little man, with lips clean shaven, standing by the bedside. 
She heard him say (clairaudiently) : " I am James Tweedale 
of Mashushets." This he repeated many times. The 
figure remained visible for about fifteen minutes, the longest 
time that I have ever known one to be seen by her. I 
had an uncle James Tweedale but he lived and died in 
England, and I did not know what to make of the message. 
On Monday, 7th August, there arrived by the morning's 
post a packet of old daguerreotypes, taken nearly sixty 
years before, and sent by a distant relative in the U.S.A., 
with a note to the effect that she thought I should have 
them, as being more nearly related. One was a photo of 
James Tweedale, my uncle, and showed him with clean- 
shaven lips. The photos arrived unexpectedly and were 
sent from a town in the State of Connecticut, U.S.A., not 
far from the Massachusetts border ! ! 

They must have been well on the way when the figure 
appeared. 

The most remarkable case occurred on Saturday, 16th 
August 1913. My wife awoke at 8 a.m., just as the letters 
came up to the bedroom door. I took in the letters and the 
newspapers. Before I opened any of them she began to 
tell me of a remarkable dream she had about the approach- 
ing aeroplane race around Great Britain. She said : 

1. That she saw three aeroplanes with what she described 
as " flappers " underneath them (probably the floats) flying 
over her and that they made a great noise. 



PREMONITIONS 259 

2. That two of these flew the race. 

3. That somehow the race had to be done over again. 
She dwelt on this point for some time. 

4. That she got the impression that two men were killed 
or hurt ; anyway, she saw them lying on the ground as 
though dead and that only one man achieved success or 
gained anything. 

I had the letters and paper unopened in my hand as she 
told me this. 

I then said : " But only two are flying." She replied : 
" Well, I saw three." I now tore off the wrapper of the 
newspaper and read that two machines were to start that 
morning, the portraits of the pilots being given. 

Immediately after breakfast I wrote to Mr Wallis, editor 
of Light, at no St Martin's Lane, an account of this dream. 
I was unable to catch the outgoing morning post, so the 
letter left at 6.10 p.m. 

On Monday, 18th August, The Daily Mail contained an 
account of the failure of one of the pilots, stating that 
Mr Hawker, after flying two hundred and forty miles, was 
overcome by the engine fumes, and that another man was 
to take his place. In the afternoon I told the dream to 
Mr T. Rhodes, of " Glenside," Askwith, and also to Mr J. 
Simpson, ironmonger of Otley, both in presence of witnesses. 

Tuesday, 19th August. — The Daily Mail stated that 
Mr Pickles, who took Mr Hawker's place, had been unable 
to rise from the sea owing to rough weather, and therefore 
the race was to be restarted from Southampton, thus most 
remarkably fulfilling part of the dream. My wife told me, 
when relating the dream, that the impression she got was 
that the two men were killed. She saw them lying very 
still on the ground. This may have indicated disablement 
or that they were placed hors de combat. She was not sure 
on this point. 

In the afternoon I wrote Mr W. W. Baggally, who is on 
the Council of the Society for Psychical Research, telling 



260 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

him of the vision and asking him to verify my letter by 
writing to the editor of Light. 

Tuesday, 26th August. — After a lapse of seven days Mr 
Hawker and Mr Kauper again started from Southampton 
on their flight around Great Britain. My wife kept saying 
during the evening : " They will never get round." 

Wednesday, 27th August. — Just after the children had 
gone to school at 1.20 p.m., my wife went upstairs into the 
Red Room. She was standing before the large mirror of 
the dressing-table reading a letter when she saw reflected in 
the mirror the figure of a boat. It was as long as the width 
of the mirror and rather slender. Suddenly it broke in 
the middle and the two ends bent up and the boat flew all 
to pieces. She immediately ran downstairs and told me. 
I was therefore in possession of the information concerning 
the breaking boat about 1.30 p.m. When my daughter 
Marjorie returned from school, about 3.30 or 3.45 p.m., my 
wife told her of the breaking boat. 

I now wrote letter-cards to Mr Wallis and Mr Baggally 
describing the vision of the boat and gave them to the 
postman as he passed the Vicarage. 

Thursday, 28th August. — The Daily Mail this morning 
states that the aeroplane was wrecked and broken all to 
pieces at 1.15 p.m. yesterday off the coast of Ireland. The 
accident happened only a few minutes before my wife's 
vision of the breaking boat. This most marvellous dream 
and vision has therefore been fulfilled to the letter. I sent 
a full account of this marvellous affair to the editor of The 
Daily Mail, but my letter was never acknowledged. 

A few days later I learned from the papers that when 
the aeroplane struck the water, as it fell into the sea, the 
boat-shaped floats underneath the plane broke in the middle 
where they were attached to the plane by the iron struts, 
and that the ends of the boat-shaped floats doubled up exactly 
as seen by my wife in the mirror !. ! 

This marvellous dream and vision is particularly well 



PREMONITIONS 261 

attested. Let us compare the dream and vision with the 
actual incidents. It will be seen to be truly prophetic. 

Three aeroplanes with C Three men take part in 
"flappers" (boat-shaped -J the flight, Mr Hawker, Mr 
floats) seen. ^Kauper and Mr Pickles. 

(Mr Hawker injured, Mr 
Kauper badly cut and arm 
broken. 

_ f Mr Hawker alone benefits 

One man seen as succeeding. \ , , , 

° l^and gets ^1000. 

C Race restarted from South - 
The race seen "to have J ton after miles had 

to be done over again." j been flown 

At Weston vicarage a long r Aeroplane falls into sea off 



boat-shaped thing seen to 
break in the middle. The ends 
bend up and then fly all to " 
pieces. Time, a few minutes 
after 1.20 p.m., 27th August. 



the coast of Ireland. The 
boat-shaped floats break in 
the middle, ends bend up 
and they fly to pieces. Time, 
.1.15 p.m., 27th August. 



A full account of this wonderful affair appeared in the 
columns of Light for 6th September 1913, and at the end 
of the account the editor appends the following note : — 

Mr Tweedale's letters referred to above can be seen at this 
office. — Ed. Light. 

I also hold a letter from Mr Baggally , dated 2nd September, 
acknowledging the receipt of the letters concerning the 
dream and prediction which I sent to him, and saying that 
he would bring the case before the S.P.R. at the next 
meeting. My wife and I are prepared to attest the truth 
of the above on oath. 

Here we have what has often been asked for, a perfectly 
evidenced forecast of a future event placed on record with 



262 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

many witnesses, in writing, from three to eleven days before 
the fulfilment of the things foretold. 

In the case on page 240 of the passing of my uncle, this 
prediction in writing is stamped with the official date stamp 
of the Post Office nearly three weeks before the announce- 
ment of his illness, making denial impossible. 

Instances of this forecasting of events will be found else- 
where in this volume. The evidence is irresistible and 
conclusive. Coming events are revealed to-day as truly 
and certainly as they were in Bible times. The forces at 
work are exactly the same. They are not telepathic (page 
91). 

A similar forecasting of an event in a dream, though not 
so complete or elaborate, is recorded by Sir Arthur Conan 
Doyle, M.D., M.B.* Long before the invasion of the Italian 
plain by the Austrians, he awoke one morning with the 
word " Piave " sounding in his ears He had never heard 
of it before, but on looking up the word he found that it 
was the name of a river in Italy. Eight or nine months 
after it became first the scene of the historic stand made 
by the Italians and Allies against the foe, and afterwards 
of their victory. 

The explanation of the cases here advanced which is 
at once the most natural and involves us in the fewest 
difficulties is the old Bible belief that the Spiritual Body is 
a separate entity, and survives the death of the natural or 
material body and has also the power of communication 
with others who are still in the flesh, and that they are 
spiritual beings who can and do communicate with man, 
and also intervene in his affairs. The fact that these com- 
munications should often be made by direct appearance 
is natural enough and in accordance with human experience 
and Biblical teaching. That the communication should 
also be made by mental pictures and impressions during 

* The New Revelation, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Hodder & 
Stoughton. 



PREMONITIONS 263 

sleep need not surprise us either, when we reflect that 
about one-third of our lives is passed in sleep, and that 
probably during sleep the Spiritual Body is very accessible 
to certain means of communication. It is almost needless 
to remark that the vast majority of dreams are from within, 
mere wanderings of the mind, almost identical with the 
mental pictures experienced under some anaesthetics, while 
their impression upon the memory is proverbially slight, 
they vanish " Like as a dream when one awaketh." 

And yet nothing is more certain than the fact that all 
dreams are not of this nature. 

Occasionally there comes a dream impression organised 
or arranged by some outside influence as a means of com- 
munication, and imparting a knowledge of future events ; 
these dreams we never forget. They are clear, distinct, and 
impressive, and the event follows on the communication.* 
To doubt this is to doubt the constant testimony of man- 
kind and an enormous cumulative weight of well-attested 
evidence. It is also to doubt and reject a large portion of 
Holy Writ. 

* The triple-tailed comet of 1886 (/) was independently discovered 
by me as the result of a dream communication. I awoke one 
morning early in November from a vivid dream to the effect that 
there was a bright telescopic comet in the Eastern sky. No especial 
position was indicated in the dream, merely somewhere in the East. 
The appearance as a pearly white bright circular nebulosity was 
vividly shown, and the whole thing produced such a strong im- 
pression on my mind that I at once roused myself, dressed, and got 
out my astronomical telescope. Nothing was visible to the naked 
eye, or in a pair of binoculars, so setting my 8^-inch reflector hap- 
hazard at an angle of about thirty degrees with the horizon, I began 
to sweep slowly through the sky. At the first sweep, and before I 
had gone many degrees, the comet sailed into the field of view. 
Its appearance was exactly as I had seen it in my dream, and I re- 
corded it as a bright pearly white circular nebulosity, as bright as, 
and larger than, 13 Messier Herculis. The chances against rinding 
any one particular telescopic nebulosity, whose position is unknown, 
at the first short sweep, are almost inconceivably great. This and 
the fact that the nebulosity should present exactly the same aspect 
as seen in my dream, removes this experience from the domains of 
chance or accident. — -C.L.T. 



264 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

In spite of the modern advances in knowledge no explana- 
tion, save the spiritual one set forth in Holy Scripture, 
can satisfy the known facts without introducing tenfold 
greater difficulties than it seeks to remove. 

The words of Elihu stand as firmly to-day as they did 
thousands of years ago : 

In a dream in visions of the night when deep sleep falleth 
upon men in slumberings upon the bed ; 

Then God openeth the ears of men and sealeth their in- 
struction. — Job xxxiii. 15-16. 

I have heard members of the Christian Churches try to explain 
away these prophetic forecasts received through psychics, and also 
by visions and dreams, as the results of " an accidental happy hit " 
or " mere coincidence." He would be a very foolish person who, 
after reading through the accounts in this book (not to mention the 
hundreds of impressive cases that can be added to it), should venture 
to describe the marvellously detailed forecasts, often made months 
or even years ahead, as " happy hits " or " mere coincidence." It 
needs but a very little knowledge of the Theory of Probabilities to 
show such an explanation to be absurd. It is extraordinary that 
such persons do not perceive that these and similar anti-psychic and 
anti-spiritual theories apply equally to the incidents narrated in the 
Bible. If the successful prophecies and forecasts, through psychic, 
dream, and vision, in these modern times, are " mere coincidences " 
and " accidental happy hits," how do we know that those recorded 
in the Old and New Testaments are not the same ? The fatuity of 
those members of the Christian Churches who talk of " happy hits," 
" coincidences," " telepathy," " subliminal self," and " subjective 
hallucination," as the explanations of modern psychic experiences, 
and who at the same time fail to perceive that these explanations, if 
true, would not merely explain away their Christianity, but also all 
revealed religion, and shatter both to bits, is almost beyond belief. 
One expects this sort of thing from professed atheists, materialists, 
and agnostics ; but Christians — — ! ! ! 



XVI 



OF THE OBJECTIVITY AND EFFECTUAL REALITY OF THE 
SPIRITUAL BODY 

And they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight.— Luke 
xxiv. 31. 

Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst.— 
John xx. 26. 

THE body of Christ after the resurrection from the 
dead was a perfect illustration and example of the 
Spiritual Body. Now St Paul tells us that men 
after bodily death will have a similar spiritual nature. 
" We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." 
This being the testimony of the apostle we are not at all 
surprised to find human experience confirming it, and to 
receive testimony from many sources as to the reality of 
the Spiritual Body in spite of its extremely tenuous nature. 
Now I repeat, lest I should be still misunderstood, 
that Christ possessed our human nature in its entirety, 
therefore we expect to find the spiritual bodies of other 
men manifesting the same phenomena as did that of Christ, 
and this expectation is realised. In this chapter I shall 
deal more especially with evidences showing that the spirit 
body in its normal, extremely tenuous condition is still 
definitely objective. The manifestations of the spirit or 
spiritual body when fully clothed with grosser matter, and 
so more solid and ponderable, will be dealt with in the 
chapter on materialisation. Let us examine the very 
careful and precise account given by Miss Morton, also that 
describing the apparition of Leah Coates at Weston, 
together with some others. We shall there find that the 
Spiritual Body frequently exhibits the characteristics of 
tenuity, with objectivity, just mentioned. 

I tried especially to touch her, but did not succeed. On 
cornering her, as I did once or twice, she disappeared. 

265 



266 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

I have twice seen the figure pass through the cords, leaving 
them intact (page 206). 

My mother swung her arm right on to the figure. Her 
hand met no resistance (page 150). 

This experience is probably as old as mankind. Virgil 
notices it in his glorious Georgics. 

In vain I reach my feeble hands to join 
In sweet embraces — " Ah, no longer thine," 
She said, and from his eyes the fleeting fair 
Retired like subtle smoke dissolved in air. 

And yet the fact that the same figures had the power to 
touch and to affect material objects is very evident from the 
following quotations : — 

I had gone up . . . and heard someone at the door. 

Slight pushes against my bedroom door. 

R. C. Morton. 

Bumps against the bedroom doors (pages 197-203). 

I saw a tall figure in black cross the hall and push open the 
drawing-room door and go in (page 208 ). F. M. K. 

The white figure of Leah came in at the open door, and then 
opened the dressing-room door (page 155). See also page 159. 

The footsteps of these apparitions are often heard : 

Her footstep is very light, you can scarcely hear it except 
on the linoleum, and then only like a person walking softly - 
with thin boots on. 

Her footsteps were heard by my sister and the cook. 

The footsteps are very characteristic ; they are soft and ' 
rather slow, though decided and even. 

The footsteps were heard by several visitors and new 
servants (pages 197-203). R. C. Morton. 

also the rustle of the apparition's garments : 

I have often heard footsteps like a person wearing flat list 
or cloth slippers, and I have heard the swish of woollen drapery 
(page 208). F. M. K. , 



OBJECTIVITY OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 267 

The figure was that of a tall lady dressed in black of a soft 
woollen material, judging by the slight sound in moving 
(page 197). 

Here is a case where definite pressure is exerted by 
a spirit invisible to the one touched, but visible to a 
bystander.* It is communicated by Mrs Windridge, of 
the address given, and was investigated by Mr Gurney 
(vol. iii., page 89). 

24 Maitland Park Road, 

Haverstock Hill, N.W., 
gth November 1882. 

About the year 1869 I was much interested in a poor woman 
who was dying in my neighbourhood. I used to visit her 
frequently until my friends prevented me from going any 
more, as the excitement rendered me ill. Eventually, when 
she died they concealed the fact from me for some days. 

I was taking my little boy three years old up to bed one 
evening, it was dusk, and when half way up the first flight of 
stairs I distinctly felt a pressure and heard a rustling of a 
dress at my side, as if a woman had brushed past me. There 
was no one there. On the second flight the pressure was 
repeated, but more unmistakably. The occurrence made me 
so nervous that, having put the boy to bed, I decided to 
remain with him until my husband came in. I accordingly 
laid down on the bed facing him. 

Suddenly the boy started up, " Oh, mother, there is a lady 
standing behind you." At the same moment I felt a pressure 
which I knew to be that of my friend. I dared not look round. 

When my husband returned I heard from him for the first 
time that my friend had died three days before. 

The pressure is repeated thrice, and there are two wit- 
nesses. This experience is very similar to that of the 
Countess di Christof ero (page 192) . Here is another instance 
showing that the Spiritual Body is capable of exerting 

* Cases of power exercised by a spirit invisible to some of those 
present are given in Dan. x. 7 ; Acts xxvi. 14. 



268 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

forcible pressure even when not materialised (S.P.R. Pro- 
ceedings, vol. iii., page 80), and affecting material objects. 

Almost every night I used to hear these footsteps, and used 
sometimes to sit on the stairs holding the banisters on each 
side with my hands. Nothing corporeal could have passed me, 
but the footsteps distinctly passed me. Two stairs in the 
bottom flight were in the habit of creaking when trodden upon, 
and when I heard the steps coming I used to count and the 
creak came always regularly on these two stairs. It was like 
a heavy unshod foot. 

In this case and in others the footsteps have sometimes 
been followed about the house. 

We now come to a most interesting experience, which was 

forwarded by Dr and Mrs C and investigated by Mr 

Myers; it is very remarkable, and illustrates Chapter XIII., 
and also the points under discussion (S.P.R. Proceedings, 
vol. vi., page 26). 

Mrs P ■ there relates as follows : — 

In the year 1867 I was married, and my husband took a 

house at S , just built in what was and still is called " Cliff 

Town." 

An uncle and aunt lived in the neighbourhood, and they 
invited us to spend Christmas Day with them. We arranged, 
therefore, to go to bed at an early hour on Monday night. 

As the bed had curtains only at the head all before us was 
open and dimly lighted, the lamp being turned down ; this 
takes some time to describe, but it was still about 9.30, Gertrude 
not yet asleep and I just pulling myself into a half -sitting 
posture against the pillows, thinking of nothing but the 
arrangements for the following day, when to my great astonish- 
ment I saw a gentleman standing at the foot of the bed 
dressed as a naval officer, and with a cap on his head having 
a projecting peak. 

The light being in the position which I have indicated, the 
face was in shadow to me, and the more so that the visitor 
was leaning upon his arms, which rested on the footrail of the 
bedfoot. I was too astonished to be afraid, but simply 
wondered who it could be, and instantly touching my husband's 



OBJECTIVITY OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 269 

shoulders — his face was turned from me — I said, " Willie, 
who is this ? " My husband turned and for a second or two 
lay looking in intense astonishment at the intruder, then, 
lifting himself a little, he shouted, "What on earth are you 
doing here, sir ? " Meanwhile the form slowly drawing himself 
into an upright position now said in a commanding, reproachful 
voice, "Willie, Willie." 

I looked at my husband's face, and saw that it was white 
and agitated ; as I turned towards him he sprang out of bed 
as though to attack the man, but stood by the bedside as if 
afraid or in great perplexity as the figure calmly and slowly 
moved towards the wall at right angles with the lamp, in the 
direction of the dotted line. As it passed the lamp's deep 
shadow fell upon the room as a material person shutting out the 
light from us by his intervening body, and he disappeared, as it 
were, into the wall. My husband, now in a very agitated 
manner, caught up the lamp, and turning to me said, " I mean 
to look all over the house and see where he is gone." 

I was by this time exceedingly agitated, too, but remember- 
ing that the door was locked, and that the mysterious visitor 
had not gone towards it at all, remarked, " He has not gone 
out by the door," but without pausing my husband unlocked 
the door, hastened out of the room, and was soon searching 
the whole house. Sitting there in the dark I thought to 
myself, we have surely seen an apparition, whatever can it 
indicate, perhaps my brother Arthur (he was in the navy and 
at that time on a voyage to India) is in trouble. Such things 
have been told as occurring. In some such way I puzzled 
with an anxious heart, holding the child, who just then 
awakened, in my arms until my husband came back looking 
very white and miserable. 

Sitting upon the bedside he put his arms about me, and 
said, " Do you know what we have seen ? " and I said, 
" Yes, it was a spirit. I am afraid it was Arthur, but I could 
not see his face," and he exclaimed, " Oh no ; it was my 
father." 

My husband's father had been dead fourteen years. 

Mr P confirms this as follows : — 

June lyth, 1885. 
Without wishing to add more to the incidents recorded 



270 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

herein by my wife, I would simply note that the details are 
quite correct, and that the occurrence took place as stated 

W. B. P . 



Here it will be noticed that the figure casts a dense shadow, 
intercepting the light as effectually as the material body. 

We had a similar experience at Weston on 27th October 
1907, the figure casting a deep shadow on the ceiling. 
Further proof of the objectivity of these appearances is 
given by the fact that the figure is sometimes seen in 
full face and in profile by observers stationed in different 
parts of the room, at the same time. This could not occur 
unless the figure had actual objective dimensions of breadth 
and thickness. This phenomenon was noted by the Master 
of Lindsay (Lord Crawford and Balcarres) when he and 
Home saw the apparition of Home's deceased wife (Report 
of the Dialectical Society, pages 121 and 206). 

On several occasions apparitional figures seen in my 
house have been observed to be reflected in the mirrors, 
the reflection and apparition being seen at the same time 
(19th January 1913), showing the objectivity of the appear- 
ance. This objectivity is also proved by the photo taken by 
me on 21st December 1915. These apparitional figures 
have also been seen by several witnesses to displace things 
with their hands, and carry them considerable distances 
(28th February and 5th April 191 1), to strike things and 
make them ring (1st January 1911 — three witnesses). The 
handles of our doors have also been seen to first turn round 
and then the door open, exactly as if a person were opening 
the door and coming in, no one being visible (24th February 
1912 — two witnesses). On another occasion, myself and 
family being seated at the supper table, the door opened 
and a man's hand, with coat sleeve, cuff and sleeve-link 
came in and grasped the knob on the inside. This was 
seen and heard by three persons at the same time. I was 
the only man in the house (15th June 1909). 



OBJECTIVITY OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 271 

Again, on 12th May 1912, an apparitional figure was 
observed by two witnesses to open a door and come into 
the room, the door remaining open, as also on 1st March 
1911. 

Sir William Crookes relates, in his articles published in 
the Quarterly Journal of Science, how on one occasion when 
the materialised form of Katie King had been carrying 
his lamp she suddenly ceased to be visible, but the lamp 
crossed the room suspended in the air without visible 
support, showing that the Spirit Body of Katie King was 
still carrying it although invisible to normal vision. 

The following extracts from the above-mentioned articles, 
and also from his account of sittings with Daniel Douglas 
Home, the famous psychic, and brother of the Earl of 
Home {Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi.), also show this power of 
discarnate beings to affect material things by actual contact 
of the Spirit Body, in a vivid and remarkable manner. 

Mr Home held the accord eon by one hand, letting the keyed 
end hang downwards. It played Ye Banks and Braes and 
other airs. I took particular notice that when the instrument 
was playing Mr Home held it lightly at the end opposite the 
keys. Although the keyed end was rising and falling vigor- 
ously and the keys moving as the music required, no hand, 
strings, wires or anything else could be seen touching that 
end. 

Mr Home brought the accordeon and held it opposite to 
Dr Bird. We then all saw it contracting and expanding 
vigorously, and emitting sounds, Mr Home part of the time 
supporting the instrument on the tip of his little finger by 
means of a string I had tied round the handle. 

Mr A. R. Wallace asked for Home, Sweet Home, and a few 
bars were immediately sounded. He saw a hand moving the 
instrument up and down and playing on the keys. Mr Home 
had one hand on the table and was holding the top end of 
the accordeon with the other while Mr Wallace saw this hand 
at the bottom end where the keys were. 

Mr Home now held the accordeon in the usual manner by 



272 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

the upper end, and we were favoured with the most beautiful 
piece of music I ever heard. It was very solemn, and the 
fingering of the music was finer than anything I could imagine. 

The accordeon now began to move about and play without 
anyone touching it. It dropped upon my foot and then 
dragged itself away, playing all the time. 

Mr Home still standing behind Mrs I., and Mr Wr. Crookes, 
the accordeon was both seen and heard to move about behind 
him without his hands touching it. It then played a tune 
without contact and floating in the air. 

It will be noticed that these cases recorded by Sir William 
Crookes do not indicate the mere movement of the accordeon, 
or its suspension in the air by forces analogous to a string 
or a rod, but by the direct contact of an intelligent though 
invisible personality, able to render music of the utmost 
complexity upon the instrument, and on several occasions 
the materialised hand only of this entity was seen grasping 
the keyed end and manipulating the keys. 

As further illustrating this, when Home held out the 
instrument by one hand and strap only, at the residence of 
Mr Gully, several persons mentally, and unknown to Home, 
requested particular tunes, all of which the instrument 
immediately played {Dialectical Society's Report, page 128). 

On another occasion Sir William, speaking of the appear- 
ances of hands, says : 

I have more than once seen an object move, then a luminous 
cloud form on it, and lastly the cloud condense to the form 
of a hand. 

First comes the movement of the article, no visible cause 
of movement being apparent ; then the appearance of a 
spirit hand showing what was really causing the movement. 
There are many cases on record showing that the Spirit 
Body, even when not materialised, has a definite objectivity. 
Obviously in the earth life we apply the force to things in 
two ways. If I want to push or pull an object, I can do it 
with a stick, or a string, or I can lay hold of it with my hand. 



OBJECTIVITY OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 273 

Now Telekinesis, or the power exerted through some psychics 
whereby force is manifested at a distance without visible, 
tangible or sensible means of communication, is proved as a 
scientific fact by the experiments of Ochorowicz, Baggally 
and others, with Mademoiselle Tomczyk, and by the in- 
teresting researches of Dr Crawford with that marvellous 
psychic, Miss Kathleen Golligher. 

In these cases the "rods," as Dr Crawford terms these 
manifestations or applications of the force, simply take 
the place of the aforementioned stick or cord as inter- 
mediaries for the transference of the force. The substance 
or plasma connected with them is sometimes materialised 
and can be felt, as will be noted later. 

That mortals move things by stick or cord does not 
alter the fact that the said mortals can and do constantly 
lift, push and pull things by direct application of their 
hands, feet and bodies, and exactly the same applies to 
spirits and the Spirit Body. Abundant evidence exists to 
show that their methods are as varied as those of mortals 
and that they can not only use methods analogous to the 
push and pull of the stick or string, or the attraction and 
repulsion of magnetic force, but also can exert force by 
the direct application of the Spirit Body. 

It must be distinctly understood that the Spirit or 
Spiritual Body is not " an immaterial entity " as has hitherto 
been usually defined and believed. The Spirit Body is a 
material body. It is not material with the grossness of 
the mortal, but still is a real and effectual body composed 
of matter in an extremely rarefied or tenuous form, yet 
having substance and so capable of entering into relations 
with grosser or more ponderable matter, of carrying human 
personality, of being seen, of being photographed. How 
this tenuous Spirit Body can so clothe itself with grosser 
matter as to be capable of walking, talking, eating food, 
and comporting itself exactly like a mortal, will be set forth 
fully in the chapter on Materialisation, 
s 



XVII 

CONCERNING THE RADIANCE OR LIGHT WHICH SOMETIMES 
ACCOMPANIES THE APPEARANCE OF THE SPIRITUAL BODY 

And at midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven 
above the brightness of the sun shining around about me and them 
which journeyed with me.- — -Acts xxvi. 13. 

And behold the angel of the Lord came upon him and a light 
shined in the prison. — Acts iii. 7. 



T 



f I ^HE appearance of this radiance from, or accompany- 
ing the manifestation of, the Spiritual Body, is a 
well-marked feature, and one well attested. Its 
occurrence in ancient days is evidenced by the Scriptures ; 
and for its appearance in modern times there is abundant 
testimony. To this manifestation of light by spiritual 
beings the Psalmist is evidently referring when he says, 
" Who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flame 
of fire." This luminosity is not merely connected directly 
with the formation or disappearance of the figure, but also 
appears to be the indication of spiritual presence (Acts ii. 3 ; 
Exodus iii. 2 ," xiii. 21), as we have already noted (204, 241). 
Observations of the phenomenon termed " materialisation " 
(vide Chapter XX.) show that the figure generally forms 
from a cloud of light, often at first of very small dimensions. 
This increases until it becomes of the height and size of a 
man, and from it the figure is evolved. If this wonderful 
metamorphosis be complete the figure may be audible and 
tangible and have all the characteristics of a living human 
being. At its disappearance the process is reversed, the 
apparently living and solid body resolving itself into a 
luminous cloud which diminishes sometimes to a mere spot 
of light, or at others appears to ascend, or vanish away. 

Occasionally where the phenomenon is viewed by two or 
more persons one perceives the luminosity only, whereas 
the other will see the figure or hear the voice, as in the 

274 



LUMINOUS APPEARANCES 275 

case of Paul and his escort on the way to Damascus 
(Acts xxii. 9). 

This is very apparent in the following case, related by 
Mr Jupp, Warden of the Orphanage Home at Aberlour, 
and carefully verified by Mr Gurney. The warden made 
the following statement : — 



As near as I can tell I fell asleep about eleven o'clock, and 
slept very soundly for some time. I suddenly awoke without 
any apparent reason, and felt an impulse to turn round, my 
face being towards the wall and away from the children. 
Before turning I looked up and saw a soft light in the room. 
The gas was burning low in the hall, and the dormitory door 
being open I thought it probable that the light came from that 
source. It was soon evident, however, that such was not the 
case. I turned round and then a wonderful vision met my 
gaze. Over the second bed from mine, and on the same side 
of the room, there was floating a small cloud of light, forming 
a halo of the brightness of the moon on an ordinary moonlight 
night. I sat upright in bed, looked at this strange appearance, 
took up my watch and found the hands pointing to five minutes 
to one. Everything was quiet, and all the children sleeping 
soundly. In the bed over which the light seemed to float 
slept the youngest of the six children previously mentioned. 
I asked myself. " Am I dreaming ? " No, I was wide awake. 
I was seized with a strong impulse to rise and touch the sub- 
stance or whatever it might be, for it was about five feet high, 
and was getting up when something seemed to hold me back. 
Shortly after I fell asleep, awakening at 5.30. At six o'clock 
I began dressing the children, beginning at the bed furthest 
from the one in which I slept. Presently I came to the bed 
over which I had seen the light hovering. I took the little 
boy out, placed him on my knee and put on some of his clothes. 
The child had been talking with some of the others, suddenly 
he was silent. And then, looking me hard in the face with an 
extraordinary expression, he said, " Oh, Mr Jupp, my mother 
came to see me last night. Did you see her ? " For a moment 
I could not answer the child. I then thought it better to pass 
it off, and said, " Come, we must make haste or we shall be 
late for breakfast." 



276 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Here the child saw the figure, Mr Jupp the column 
of luminosity accompanying its manifestation. That this 
luminosity is absolutely connected with the figure is well 
seen from the following remarkable experience related by 
Mr and Mrs Davis, of the Pension Laurent, Florence, com- 
municated by the Rev. W. S. Grignol (Proceedings S.P.R., 
vol. vi., page 289), and also from that of myself and wife. 

Mrs Davis says : 

I fell asleep at once but was awakened by an unusual light 
in my room. I sprang up in a tremor exclaiming, " What is 
it ? " and saw gliding by my bed the figure of an elderly person 
which went through the closed door leading into Mr Davis's 
room. 

As the figure and accompanying light left the room of 
Mrs Davis it entered the room of Mr Davis through the 
closed door, for he relates (under date of 21st February 
1889) : 

I was awakened from a quiet sleep by a light which seemed 
to come in at the door leading from my wife's chamber, and 
immediately a figure appeared, approached the bed and 
leaned over as if to kiss me- — and suddenly passed away, but 
not before I had recognised in the features of the apparition, 
those of my mother, who died in 1872, aged 81. 

A very similar experience to that of Mr Jupp's was recently 
given me by Miss Alexandrina M'Gillivray, of 33 London 
Gardens, West Hampstead, who is personally known to me. 
Under date 29th July 191 8, she writes : 

Once when sharing a room with a sister I could not sleep. 
I was looking towards her bed when I saw a luminous cloud 
hovering over her head. It did not frighten me in the least 
so I did not waken her, but in the morning she told me that 
she had had a very vivid dream of our mother who had died 
some time previously — so vivid that she could hardly believe 
my mother was not present. 



LUMINOUS APPEARANCES 277 

Here one sees the cloud, the other has the dream 
communication. 

It is my privilege to add my own testimony to the reality 
of these luminous phenomena, many of extraordinary interest 
and varied character having been seen by us. The follow- 
ing experiences came spontaneously and entirely unsought 
on our part. They are typical and all took place at Weston 
on the dates given. 

The sleeping apartment we occupied was a room about 
fifteen feet square, with one door and one small window, 
the latter at a considerable height from the ground. The 
door was on each occasion locked and bolted by me on the 
inside before retiring to rest, and the window securely 
fastened by the latch. Curiously enough, as if to emphasise 
the reality of the phenomena, the window was covered with 
a thick curtain and the room intensely dark. 

On the night of 19th December 1907 my wife was 
awakened by a feeling of intense cold, and by a strong cold 
breeze blowing upon her cheek. She turned her head, 
raising herself, and saw, to her amazement, standing at the 
foot of the bed, and on my side of it, a tall column of white 
cloudy light reaching from the bed's foot right up to the 
ceiling. She gazed at it spellbound (the cold wind blowing 
the whole time) for a minute or more, during which period 
she noticed that the light illuminated the bed coverlet, and 
she could see its pattern distinctly, and also the dressing 
table and mirror by the light, and then becoming terrified 
she buried her head under the clothes, and on looking up 
after a considerable time found the room in darkness. She 
described the light to me when I awoke as like a column 
of muslin wrapped in spiral swathes, with a strong 
electric light in the midst and shining through it. I 
was much astonished at this recital, and gave her strict 
instructions to awaken me should the appearance occur 
again. 

On 7th April 1908 I was awakened in the early morning 



278 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

by my wife shaking me. I at once roused, crying, " What 
is the matter ? " She said, " Hush, that thing is here 
again." I instantly sat up and looked most intently in 
every direction. The room was intensely dark and not 
the faintest glimmer of light could be perceived. After 
satisfying myself on the point I got up and walked about 
the room looking for any indication of entering gleams of 
light from the outside ; but none were to be seen. I now 
lit a candle, and my wife informed me that shortly before 
she awoke me she was herself awakened, and perceived a 
bright globular light at the bed's foot, just at my feet, but 
apparently projected upon or enclosing the brass rail. 
At first it was the size of a large orange, but began to increase 
in height and breadth until at the lapse of a minute it had 
the diameter of a man's body, and stood up three feet above 
the brass rail. It was very bright, and like an electric light 
within a pillar of gauze. She tried to call to me, but could 
not. I was sound asleep and breathing heavily while the 
pillar of light stood just at my feet, and apparently partly 
on the bed. At last in terror, lest the light should develop 
into something very terrifying, she shook me vigorously. 
The light still shone and increased, but the instant I awoke 
and cried out, she avers that the light at once collapsed 
and sank down in curious folds just like the shutting up of 
camera bellows. Much astonished at this second recital 
I put out the light, and together we watched for any re- 
appearance, but without avail. In about half-an-hour the 
dawn began to break through the curtains. Although my 
wife had carried out my request to awaken me I had not 
perceived the light ; my awakening apparently being the 
signal for its departure. 

Our third experience occurred on the night of 8th 
November 1908. I was awakened by my wife frantically 
clutching at my side, and in reply to my query, heard her say 
in a low voice, "That thing is here." I instantly sprang 
up into a sitting posture, looking intently before me. 



LUMINOUS APPEARANCES 279 

Straight in front, at the bed's foot, was a beautiful cloud of 
phosphorescent light about four feet in diameter, suspended 
in the middle of the room. It was close to me, not more 
than five feet away. Even as my eyes rested upon it, it 
began to ascend just like a small balloon. With a steady 
motion it seemed to go straight up and right through the 
ceiling. I could not repress an exclamation of wonder, 
having no feeling of fear, but only of intense interest and 
curiosity. For a few moments I gazed about the room to 
see whether any light penetrated, but nothing could be 
perceived in the remotest degree approaching to what I 
had seen. I got up, examined the door and found it locked 
and bolted. I then drew back the curtain from the window. 
The time was five-thirty, and the dawn was just beginning 
to show itself in the sky. Without telling my wife what I 
had seen I asked her why she had awakened me. She then 
told me that she had been roused by a shock or blow which 
seemed to be under the bed, but might have been on it. At 
any rate it made her start up into a sitting posture. At the 
foot of the bed she saw the figure of a man dressed in black 
with a calm grave face, his clenched hand resting upon the 
brass rail as though he had just struck it. A light seemed 
to surround the figure in some way, for she could distinctly 
see the pattern of the coverlet of the bed, while the brass 
rails glistened in the light, and the room was quite illumin- 
ated. The moment she saw it she began to awaken me. 
As soon as I awoke and cried : " What is the matter ? " the 
figure began to resolve itself into a luminous cloud. First 
the head went, then the trunk, and finally the cloud rose 
up to the ceiling and disappeared. The latter part of her 
statement corresponded exactly with what I myself had 
seen. 

On the fourth occasion (15th March 1909) the figure 
of the man stood by my side as I slept. On my wife 
rousing me, just as I awoke it vanished with a flash of, 
light like the flare of a safety match. 



280 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

This formation from a column of light of a human figure 
which again dissolves into a luminous cloud is surely one of 
the most wonderful phenomena of which we can have any 
knowledge. 

A very similar experience occurred to us in London 
during the night of 2nd June 191 2. I was awakened by 
my wife, who said that she had seen many star-like lights 
in the room and that a tall white form had come to the 
side of the bed. I fell asleep again, only to be awakened 
once more by my wife, who said : " There is someone by 
the side of the bed trying to attract attention." She also 
said that she had again seen the lights. As I sat up I saw 
a bright, elongated light at the foot of the bed, but no 
distinct form. The door was locked, the room dark, and 
the window heavily curtained, admitting no stray light 
from outside. 

On many occasions bright lights of various kinds have 
been seen by us, and twice my study has been seen brightly 
illuminated — on 10th December 191 1 by seven witnesses, 
and on 4th October 1917 by two witnesses, when neither 
lamp, candles nor fire, nor any other means of illumination, 
has been in the room, which on the first occasion was locked, 
the key being in my pocket. 

On 22nd June 1909, 11 p.m., the apparition of a man 
was seen in the passage bearing a bright light in his hand, 
which he waved about ; so bright that it quite overpowered 
the light of the lamp. 

The following two cases are striking, not only on account 
of the remarkable luminous phenomena accompanying 
them, but also for the consolation afforded to the per- 
cipients. The first is recorded in vol. v., page 450. In this 
there are two percipients of the radiance, but only one 
sees the figure, and she sees both figure and radiance 
twice. This case is investigated by Mr Sedgwick of the 
5.P.R. 

Miss C. A. writes of the first appearance of her father's 



LUMINOUS APPEARANCES 281 

Spiritual Body while he was alive, but in extremis and 
unconscious (vide Chapter IX.). 

A day or two before his death, somewhere between the 
4th and 10th of December (the day of his decease), when he 
was lying in an unconscious state in a room on the ground 
floor, and I was sleeping on the second floor, I was awoke 
suddenly by seeing a bright light in my bedroom — the whole 
room was flooded with a radiance quite indescribable — and 
my father was standing by my bedside, an etherealised semi- 
transparent figure, yet his voice and his aspect were normal. 
His voice seemed a far-off sound, and yet it was his same 
voice as in life. All he said was, "Take care of mother.'' 
He then disappeared floating in the air, as it were, and the 
light also vanished. 

About a week afterwards, that is to say between the 12th 
and the 17th of December, the same apparition came to me 
again and repeated the same words. An aunt to whom I 
related these experiences suggested to me that possibly some- 
thing was troubling his spirit, and I then promised her that 
should my dear father visit me again I would answer him. 
This occurred a short time afterwards. 

On this occasion he repeated the same words, and I replied, 
" Yes, father." He then added, " I am in perfect peace.'' 

Apparently he was satisfied with this my assurance. Since 
that time I have neither seen nor heard any more. 

I have never before or since had any such experience. 

(Signed) C. A. 

The next case is published in Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi., 
page 26, and is of a peculiarly happy and consolatory nature, 
as indeed is the narration we have just noticed. The per- 
cipient does not allow her name to be published, but it 
was known to Mr Myers, and the case was investigated 
by him. Her husband also confirms the account. 

June 9, 1885. 

Our mother died while we were young, and as I, the fourth 
child of seven, was the eldest living daughter, I was continually 
with my father, who made much of me, and at last I became 



282 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

his constant companion. He never married again, and our 
love was probably therefore a closer union than commonly 
exists between a father and daughter where the latter is of 
tender years. 

[The writer then narrates how a sudden summons brought 
her back to find her father dead.] 

I went early to bed to escape the presence and sympathetic 
administrations of the many in that kind household who 
gathered around me, and by my own choice I shared the 
room of a motherly-looking personage whom I supposed to be 
my cousin's nurse. She occupied the larger bed in the room, 
and I a smaller one placed at some distance from hers. She 
was soon asleep and breathing heavily, but I was lying in 
deepest anguish beset not only with the loss so suddenly 
sustained, but with the wretched fear that my beloved father 
had died too suddenly to find peace with God regarding those 
miserable doubts which had so troubled him. As the night 
wore on the pain of heart and thought grew worse and worse, 
and at length I knelt in prayer earnestly pleading that my 
distressful thoughts might be taken away and an assurance of 
my father's peace be given me by God's most holy spirit. 
No immediate relief came, however, and it was early dawn 
when I rose from my knees and felt that I must be patient 
and wait for the answer to my prayer. 

Now a longing suddenly seized me to creep into that kind- 
faced woman's bed, and to feel, perhaps, less lonely there. 
Her bed was opposite a window over which a white blind was 
drawn, and as I slipped into the bedclothes and sat for a 
moment after drawing my feet up into the bed I noticed the 
pale dawn feebly lighting up the window and the movement 
of a little bird on the sill outside, but the room itself was yet 
almost dark. 

I was just about to slip quietly down into the bed when 
on the opposite side of it, that on which the nurse was sleep- 
ing, the room became suddenly full of a beautiful light, in the 
midst of which stood my father absolutely transfigured, 
clothed with brightness. He slowly moved towards the bed, 
raising his hands as though to clasp me into his arms, and I 
ejaculated, " Father." He replied, " Blessed for ever, my 
child, for ever blessed.'' I moved to climb over nurse and 
kiss him, reaching out my arms to him, but with a look of 
mingled sadness and love he appeared to float back with the 



LUMINOUS APPEARANCES 283 

light towards the wall and was gone. The vision occupied 
so short a time that glancing involuntarily at the window 
again I saw the morning dawn and the little bird just as they 
had looked a few minutes before. I felt sure that God had 
vouchsafed to me a wonderful vision, and was not in the least 
afraid, but, on the contrary, full of joy that brought floods of 
grateful tears, and completely removed all anguish except that 
of having lost my father from earth. 

Another remarkable luminous phenomenon is often seen 
in the eyes of spiritual beings. They are sometimes lumin- 
ous, especially if the spirit is an exalted or powerful one 
(cf. Rev. i. 14 ; Dan. x. 5, 6). This has often been observed 
by Lord Crawford (the Master of Lindsay) and others (vide 
Dialectical Report, pages 328, 368). In most apparitions of 
spiritual beings the eyes appear normal, but when dark 
spaces are observed where the eyes should be, as is some- 
times—though rarely — the case, it indicates that the 
etherialisation or materialisation has not been complete. 

Instances of lights accompanying psychic manifestations 
will be found in other chapters. 

The nature of this radiance is at present unknown, but 
there are indications that it is radio-active, and can impress 
an image on the photographic plate. 



XVIII 

CONCERNING CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE AND ' 
THEIR EVIDENCE FOR HUMAN SURVIVAL AND THE 
EXISTENCE OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and 
behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round 
about Elisha.— 2 Kings vi. 17. 

The Lord God hath opened my ear and I was not rebellious, - 
neither turned I away back.— Isaiah 1. 5. 

Speak, Lord : for thy servant heareth. — 1 Sam. iii. 9, 10. 

Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest 
thou ? Thou shalt see greater things than these. — John i. 47. 

I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh : and your sons and your . 
daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and 
your old men shall dream dreams. — Acts ii. 17 ; Joel ii. 30. 

The word revealed to seers of old 
In city, field, or fane of gold, 
Still floats upon the morning wind, 
Still whispers to the willing mind, 
One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The world beneath hath never lost. 

Emerson. 

CLAIRVOYANCE and clairaudience * are extensions 
of the powers of normal sight and hearing, almost 
equivalent to the possession of a sixth and seventh 
sense in the vista which their possession opens up. That 
men and women have possessed these powers all down the 
ages is abundantly proved by the records of sacred and 
profane history. 

The faculty of clairvoyance enables its possessor to see 
discarnate spiritual beings in the more tenuous spirit body, 
and also symbols which they exhibit which are invisible to 
normal vision, while the faculty of clairaudience enables 
its possessor to hear the voices of discarnate spirit beings, 
and other psychic sounds which they cause, which are in- 
audible to normal hearing. Quite how this extension of 
* Clear seeing, clear hearing. 

284 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 285 

the normal powers of sight and hearing is brought about 
we do not know, nor is it necessary for the sake of the 
argument that we should know. We do not know how 
the brain records and remembers an incident, but we accept 
the fact. 

In the matter of clairaudience I have had many oppor- 
tunities of gaining information through being present 
during my wife's experiences. Often when clairvoyant she 
at the same time hears the figure speak to her and sees the 
lips of the figure move. 

This form of clairaudience seems to be analogous to 
direct speech in mortals and may be a form of the direct 
voice, which we shall consider in another chapter. We 
have had many marvellously accurate messages delivered 
in this way and some wonderful forecasts of future events 
which have been fulfilled to the letter. 

Another form of clairaudience is that in which the voice 
is clearly and loudly heard by the clairaudient but no figure 
is seen clairvoyantly. The first few occasions on which 
this form was experienced by my wife were intensely in- 
teresting : notably on 12th January 1910, when she had 
her first experience of this form. It began by her hearing 
the sound of someone talking, interrupted by a loud buzzing 
sound and a painful sensation in her ears, which made her 
cry out that it was hurting her. The voice then became 
clear, and for several minutes she carried on a wonderfully 
evidential conversation, giving remarkable proof of human 
survival, by imparting information previously unknown. 
Another time the voice was preceded by a rumbling sound 
like the approach of a traction engine, or the strong vibra- 
tion of machinery. On each occasion my wife was much 
disturbed and kept asking me what the noise was and 
whether I could not hear it. Then the voice broke through, 
distinct and clear. This buzzing and vibration ceased 
after the first few times. It was as though some preparation 
of the auditory nerve had to be undergone. 



286 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

These faculties have existed all down the ages, and 
anciently they were universally believed in, and the Scriptures 
are full of incidents showing their exercise. Clairvoyance 
is undoubtedly referred to (in spite of the quibbles of 
opponents) in i Cor. xii. 10 as one of the spiritual gifts 
possessed by the early Church " the discerning [distinguish- 
ing, scrutiny] of spirits " and this gift, among others, the 
apostle exhorts us to " covet earnestly." (187) 

Abundant evidence of various kinds is on record proving 
that these faculties are true powers, some of which I shall 
now set forth. Recently it was my privilege to have a 
spontaneous experience in the presence of witnesses which 
gave experimental and objective proof of the reality of 
clairvoyance, and established it as a scientific fact. 

This the reader will find fully set forth in due course in 
the chapter dealing with Psychic Photography. The ques- 
tion which at this point will probably arise in the reader's 
mind is this : " What have clairvoyance and clairaudience 
to do with the matter of human survival ? " Much in 
every way, for they constitute some of the means whereby 
the evidence is given. They furnish one phase of that 
evidence. The reader must remember that this evidence 
is cumulative. Apparitions and the information they often 
give are backed by clairvoyant descriptions and clairaudient 
messages ; clairvoyance and clairaudience are backed by 
the direct voice and all it conveys ; the direct voice is 
backed by psychic photography ; psychic photography is 
backed by materialisation ; until, proof being piled upon 
proof, there is no room left for doubt. 

In giving examples of clairvoyance I will set forth 
a few of my own experiences among others, proving 
human survival and also the existence of supernormal 
intelligences or spiritual beings able to accurately forecast 
the future and impart information beyond the knowledge 
either of the clairvoyant or of the recipient. 

My first experiences occurred in 1909, when I first began 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 287 

my psychical investigations. I happened to have business 
which took me to one of the large towns in the north of 
England, a town which I had not visited for twenty years, and 
then had only traversed while on a journey. It lies nearly 
one hundred miles north of my vicarage, and at that time 
I did not know a single person resident there, nor had I 
a correspondent in the place. Having heard that there were 
persons there who laid claim to supernormal powers, I 
resolved to put these powers to the test. Arriving in the 
town, a stranger among strangers, having dispatched my 
business I made careful inquiries, from people entirely 
strange to me, until I found out the addresses of three 
persons who were said to have the powers in question, and 
these I at once proceeded to put to the test. I had pre- 
viously taken the utmost pains to avoid speaking of my 
affairs, and I sought out these people incognito, care- 
fully withholding my name and address. The first person I 
approached was in business, and entering his shop I began 
to examine his goods. Thinking I wished to buy he 
approached me to that end. After some little parley I told 
him that I had heard of his powers, and asked him if he 
could possibly give me a demonstration of them. Although 
I was a perfect stranger to him, and withheld my name 
and address, he very kindly invited me to his house to 
tea, and I went. After the meal we drew near the fire, 
I pencil and notebook in hand, keenly on the alert, yet 
maintaining an expressionless face with the object of giving 
my host no clue. 

He soon began to give me fluent descriptions of a number 
of persons which he said he could see around me, but 
which I could not see at all, and what was more to the 
point, which I did not then recognise in any single in- 
stance. I listened to the descriptions with a feeling of 
amusement and incredulity, not clearly recognising any 
of them. As fast as they were uttered I wrote them in 
my book, and when at last he ceased, I told him candidly 



288 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

that I could not recognise any of them, but at the same 
time I was extremely indebted to him for his kindness, 
and so we parted, he still ignorant of my identity. The 
descriptions given by him will be found in column No. I 
on page 290. 

In due course I hied to the house of one of the other 
two persons I had on the list. She had removed and left 
the neighbourhood, so I had perforce to fall back on the 
third whom, by the way, I had previously decided not to 
visit, it being too far out of my way. This second part 
of my quest took me into a neighbouring town, where I 
had never previously been, and where I did not know a 
soul. In due course I arrived at the house of the person 
I sought, and was soon seated notebook in hand jotting 
down her " seeings," having in this case also withheld 
my name and address. I soon found that although she 
gave me descriptions of other figures not given by No. 1 
and omitted some of his, yet she gave in two cases exactly 
similar descriptions, almost word for word. I carefully 
refrained from giving the slightest indications of interest 
or surprise, nor did I utter a word of comment during the 
descriptions, merely writing them down. At last she 
stopped, and hesitating, said : "I see a little child close 
to your shoulder, does this apply to you ? " I answered 
that I could not tell without a sufficient description. 
" Well," she replied, " this little one does not seem to be 
more than a year old. It died, as you would express it, 
a long time ago, and was a relative of yours." I replied, 
with a face of stone, that so far I recognised nothing. 
Proceeding, she suddenly looked up and said : " This 
little one died of a disease in the throat and head. This 
little one had great difficulty of breathing before it died." 
This did surprise me a good deal, but I carefully refrained 
from showing it, and after some little conversation with 
her I took my leave and departed, giving no clue to my 
identity or residence. The information obtained in this 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 289 

case is set down in column No. 2. The matter was 
now beginning to be interesting, and the first thought that 
crossed my mind was, had there been any communication 
between the two persons to account for the striking 
similarity of the descriptions of a and y, as given by each 
of them ? It was just possible, though highly improbable, 
considering my precautions, that such had taken place. 
The next thing to be settled was how had she hit off so 
exactly the description ai i death of my little sister, Kate 
Annie? Up to the mom it that she mentioned the little 
one's presence and manner of death I had not had the 
matter in mind for a very long time. She died in infancy 
when only a few months old, forty-five years before, and I 
now recalled to mind how, many years since, I had heard 
my mother describe, with tears in her eyes, the horrible 
death, by suffocation, from diphtheria which the little one 
had endured. Here was a fact entirely unknown to No. 1, 
or to any living soul in that district, or for a hundred miles 
around. The next explanation seemed to be telepathy. 
Had she picked up the two descriptions a and (3 from my 
mind, placed there by No. 1, and by the same mysterious 
telepathy had picked up the recollection of my mother's 
description of the death of the little sister, whom I never 
saw, which lay hidden away in the recesses of my brain ? 
If this were the case I could only say that telepathy was 
indeed a marvellous thing. Beyond the description of the 
little child 8 I recognised none of these she gave, merely 
noting that two of them, a and y, were the same as given 
by No. 1. During one of these, that of the old lady with 
the round rosy pleasant face, she paused and said : "I see 
a brooch, and it is so distinct that it will be a test, make 
careful note of it. It fastens the little shawl." Then she 
appeared to look a long time at it and continued : " It is a 
large oval brooch, the frame is of twisted metal or gold," 
again she repeated the word " twisted " several times. 
" The stone set in the middle is a large brown one with 

T 



290 



MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 



r^ 






7 

A lady 68 - 70, 
scarcely average 
height, stout, feat- 
ures round and full, 


^C 




P 

I see a hand 
coming down and 
writing a name 
before my face. He 
writes the name 
William. 


i-n 




P 

I see the name 
William in bright 
letters over your 
head. 


7 

A lady rather 
stout, about 70, 
round face, full 
cheeks, hair white, 


<* 


a 

A gentleman 
about 63, tall, well 
built, very well 
dressed, long face, 
large nose, promin- 
ent cheek bones, 
clean shaven lip, 
little side whisker, 
on your father's 
side. I think he 
was a doctor. 


P 

I hear the name 
William in connec- 
tion with you. 


7 

Lady, stout in 
bust, round feat- 
ured, nose straight 
and broad, eyes 


ro 


7 

An old lady with 
a cap, black strings 
to her cap and 
these hang down 


M 


a 

A gentleman 
taller than you, 
very fine figure, 
military style, 
erect, long straight 
nose, firm chin, face 
falls in at cheeks, 
brown hair, clean 
shaven, steel grey 
eyes. Followed the 
calling of a doctor, 
and was very clever 
at his profession. 

The tall gentle- 
man, who was a 
doctor, still stands 
close to you as 
though much inter- 
ested. 


P 

I see the name 
William written 
over you in very 
bright letters, as 
bright as the elec- 
tric light. 


7 

Elderly lady, full 
bust, very pleasant, 
round features, 
colour on cheeks, 



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CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 291 



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in 


fullish nose, very 
pleasant face, one 
of the nicest and 
kindest I have ever 
seen. Wears a gold 
brooch. 


5 

A little girl is 
near you who 
passed away with 
croup. 


rt- 


well marked, brown 
colour, dressed in 
old-fashioned 
clothes. Wears a 
large round brooch 
of twisted go\A, the 
gold intertwined. 


8 

I see a little child 
near you. It died 
of a feverish con- 
dition in the throat 
and head. Scarlet 
fever or diphtheria. 


ro 


by the sides of her 
face. Wears asmall 
shawl, with a silk 
lace fringe, fas- 
tened with a large 
oval brooch. 


N 


nose short and 
thick at base, eyes 
set back. Dressed 
neatly in black. 
Wears a small 
shawl with a little 
fringe round her 
shoulders, fastened 
with a big brooch, 
frame of gold, 
twisted. A big 
plain oval stone in 
the centre, of a 
dark brown colour, 
with white streaks 
in it ; looks like 
marble, but I don't 
think it is marble. 
Worked a great 
deal with her 
fingers, which were 
very quick at em- 
broidery, etc. 
A relative of yours. 


5 

AHttlechild close 
to you, passed away 
when not more than 
12 months old. 
Died of a disease 
of the throat and 
head. Had great 
difficulty in breath- 
ing before it died. 


" 


gious. Dresed in 
black gown. A 
white shawl or hand - 
kerchief is crossed 
on her chest and 
fastened down neat 
and tidy. Wears 
a white cap with 
black strings. Not 
of this generation, 
probably great 
grandmother. 


5 

Many beautiful 
faces of children 
around you. 



292 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

white streaks in it. It looks like marble, but I don't think 
it is marble." 

I could only tell her that I knew nothing of such a person 
as she described, and had never seen such a brooch. Re- 
turning home I wrote to my mother, giving her description 
y, asking if she recognised it o.r had ever seen such a 
brooch on her side of the family. She replied in the 
negative. I then wrote to my uncle on my father's side, 
whom I had not seen for twenty-four years, putting the 
same inquiry. In the course of a few days I received a 
letter from which I extract the following passages : — 

The description contained in your letter is a faithful one of 
the person and character of your great aunt * Edna. From 
whatsoever source it has emanated, although I had the pleasure 
of knowing her, I could not have given a more faithful account 
of her person. She dressed neatly in black. The shawl and 
fringe, also its being crossed and fastened with an oval 
brooch, I remember well, in fact that brooch came to my wife 
at her (Edna's) death. The frame was as you describe (twisted), 
and the stone was of Derbyshire marble, brown as described. 
She was of a deeply religious nature, never idle, could do all 
sorts of embroidery and knitting, and her fingers were very quick 
and nimble. She wore a white cap with black satin strings. 

This letter gave remarkable confirmation to the accounts, 
and as I had never seen my great aunt Edna, or seen or 
heard of the brooch, the telepathic, subjective, and latent 
image theories were shattered and failed entirely to explain 
the matter, for No. I had given me an accurate description 
of the person and dress of one whom I never saw in life 
and whose photograph I never saw, and which I have since 
been unable to procure. While No. 2, giving the same 
description, added to it a carefully detailed description of 
a brooch I had never either seen or heard of, and of the 
very existence of which I was totally ignorant, and of 
which I had considerable difficulty in obtaining information, 
while these descriptions were accurately confirmed by one 
* Vide description y. 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 293 

living 150 miles away from the place where they were 
given to me. 

This effectively destroyed the theory of collusion between 
the northern seers 1 and 2, for the telling identification 
in 8 and the remarkable description of the brooch in y 
afterwards so wonderfully verified, were not given by 
No. 1, as they undoubtedly would have been had there 
been collusion. Here at last was something worthy of 
investigation. Therefore, making a careful record of all 
that had occurred, and keeping my own counsel, when 
business took me up to London shortly afterwards I re- 
solved to try for further evidence. From a list, published 
in a weekly paper, and obtained on the spot, I chose names 
at random, carefully concealing my intention. I also 
resolved to interview another person whom I had heard 
of but never seen. In each case they were separated by 
considerable distances and I visited them privately, with- 
holding my name and address, and giving no notice of 
my coming or that I had interviewed any other, or had 
any intention of doing so. In every instance I gave no 
clue as to whether they were right or wrong, but simply 
rose and took my leave. The results of this further trial are 
set forth in columns 3, 4, 5, and 6, and are sufficiently 
remarkable to arrest attention. It having been shown in 
the first instance, in the case of my great aunt, that the 
facts were unknown to me, telepathy and the subliminal 
self are ruled out, and the only explanation that will stand, 
without introducing greater difficulties than it seeks to 
remove, is the one which affirms that these six persons were 
able to give descriptions coinciding so accurately, because 
they each saw standing near me the persons and things 
they described. This, and the fact that information was 
conveyed to me of which I had no previous knowledge, is 
proof of the survival of the personalities of my relatives 
after the death of the material body. 

My mother informed me that the description of the 
military-looking doctor is exactly that of my father's 



294 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

medical partner, Mr William Brook, of Stainland, near 
Halifax. He had been in the army, and died shortly before 
I was born, and I never knew him, though he took a great 
interest in my progress to this world. Telepathy and the 
subliminal self are, therefore, ruled out in this case also. 

Shortly after my return from London my wife and I 
together visited a Bradford man whom we had heard of 
as possessing the clairvoyant gift. We called unexpectedly 
upon him, giving him no notice of our coming. We ex- 
plained our object, that we were seeking evidence of man's 
survival, and asked permission to withhold our name and 
address. He very kindly consented, and soon we were 
seated in his sitting-room with a good fire and light, chatting 
genially with him and his good wife, who also proved to be 
clairvoyant. She soon described the spirit form of a man 
as present, whom she said had lived overseas, who limped, 
and who gave the name of James Wilson. This was good, 
as my wife's uncle, recently deceased, lived in Australia, 
was named James Wilson, and limped, as the result of an 
accident which broke his leg. Of these facts the clair- 
voyante could by no possibility have had any knowledge 
whatsoever. The man now began to describe a pleasant 
old lady dressed in black, as set forth in column 7. Soon 
he said that she had gone. I waited a little while to 
see if anything else would come, but a? nothing did I 
drew a line across the book and was just putting it in my 
pocket and thanking him when he called out : " Stay ! 
here is something very strange. It is held out to me by 
itself, floating in the air." I said : " What is it ? " He 
replied : " It is a big oval gold brooch; the frame is of 
twisted gold, some kind of a stone in the middle with 
marks in it." 

Astonished and delighted at this fresh evidence, I was 
about to thank him again, when suddenly a shower of 
raps and knockings resounded all around the room, on 
the walls, on the sideboard and finally on the soles oj my 
wife's boots. This was apparently a sign of jubilation 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 295 

that the evidential demonstration had been brought to a 
successful issue ! 

This experience was all the more wonderful in that the 
brooch and the wearer were shown separately and the whole 
was crowned by the remarkable rapping signals which 
concluded the demonstration, showing clearly and un- 
mistakably that it had been planned and arranged by the 
denizens of the spirit spheres. In this extraordinary series 
of experiences none of the clairvoyants knew either my 
name or address, or had even seen me before, and the 
utmost care was taken not to give any clue, or any indica- 
tion that the information was correct, or to allow the 
matter to become public until after the investigation was 
complete. As for the seers, No. 1 was Mr W. H. Robinson, 
bookseller, of Newcastle; No. 2, Mrs Isobel Twentyman ; 
No. 3, Mr R. Boursnell, the psychic photographer ; No. 5 
Nurse Graham ; No. 7, Mr J. J. Parker. 

On the occasion of this first visit to Mr W. H. Robinson, 
and when he knew neither my name nor address and was 
an entire stranger to me, when giving the clairvoyant de- 
scriptions, he also said : " There is an old man with you, 
an Italian, who lived in one of the middle cities of Italy. 
He is teaching you something, but I cannot make out 
what it is, but within ten years you will be well known." 

I was struck with what he told me about the Italian, for, 
all unknown to him, I had been for years privately engaged 
in a laborious attempt to rediscover the secret of the varnish 
of Antonius Stradivarius, the famous violin maker of 
Cremona, a city which, on referring to the map, I found to 
lie nearly in the middle of the Italian plain. 

Stradivarius lived and worked to an extreme old age, 
making instruments in his ninety-third year. In February 
191 9, nearly ten years after this first interview and this 
prediction, I have discovered, what careful comparison 
with the finest specimens of Stradivari's work shows to 
be, practically, the identical varnish used by this great 
master. 



296 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Several months after this I again visited Newcastle and 
called on Mr Robinson. My wife was with me, and shortly 
expecting the birth of her child which, she was convinced, 
and had been from the first, would be a boy. Turning to 
her, Mr Robinson said : " The child will be a girl." We 
both laughed, and my wife strongly combated the idea, 
I at the same time explaining her strong preconception. 
He listened to what we had to say, and then calmly said : 
" Well, when the girl is born you can write and tell me." 
A month afterwards my youngest daughter was born, and 
write we did. 

I was accompanied on my visit to No. 4 by Mr Richard 
A. Bush, whose acquaintance I had only made a few days 
before, and of whose relatives and affairs I knew nothing. 
The clairvoyant's address was selected at random out of 
the list in the paper, and neither of us had ever seen her 
before. After giving me the descriptions recorded she 
turned to him and said she saw a person near him, and gave 
details fairly indicative of the manner of his death, which 
was unusual. Then she paused and said : "He has upon 
his finger a ring — no, a broad gold band, like a ring; he 
holds it out to you for you to see." Finally she added : 
" I get the name of Will." Thinking it might refer to the 
" William " previously given to me, I said to her : "Is 
it not William ? " She at once replied, with great decision : 
" No ! Will." My friend gave no indications as to whether 
she was right or wrong, and I for my part knew nothing of 
the matter. We then left the " seer," who was an absolute 
stranger to both of us. My friend had not even been in 
that particular street before, nor had I previously been in 
that part of London. I then accompanied Mr Bush to his 
house, out of town. After dinner he observed to his wife : 
" I believe that I have been in touch with Will to-day." 
The next morning he asked her to bring a small box. On 
opening the box there lay the most peculiar and remarkable 
ring I have ever seen. It was a massive and heavy gold 
band, nearly half-an-inch wide, and fully one-eighth of an 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 297 

inch thick. " There," he said, " you remember how she 
described a broad gold band ? There it is. I don't suppose 
there is another ring like it. I gave it to my brother on 
my wedding day, he being best man, and as I could not find 
such a ring as I wanted I had it made specially, as a memento 
of the occasion. After my brother was killed the ring was 
given to me again by his widow. You remember how she 
distinguished between your ' William ' and my ' Will.' 
As a matter of fact he always went by the name ' Will ' 
and never by the full name. This distinction between the 
two is very noteworthy, and I may add that at the time of 
our visit I was not thinking of my brother at all , being more 
concerned with what she was telling you." 

I have had many similarly evidential experiences with 
clairvoyants since 1908-1909, my wife also having been, 
up to recently, regularly clairvoyant and clairaudient for 
years past. 

I am as certain of the existence of these faculties as I 
am of my own powers of sight and hearing. One other 
experience of my own must suffice. On 15th December, 
myself and wife being in Bradford and having an hour or 
two to spare, we made inquiries in several small shops 
until we got on the track of a person who was reputed to 
be a good clairvoyant. We had never heard of him before, 
and all the people of whom we inquired were entire strangers 
to us. In due time we arrived at his house, and found him 
to be a retired cabinet-maker. We explained our mission 
and asked to be permitted to withhold our names and 
address. It was a cold November day and we walked 
straight out of the fog into the house of this man, who was 
an entire stranger to us, and of whom we had never heard 
until half-an-hour before. He informed us that we had 
brought many spirit people with us,* some of whom he 
proceeded to describe as follows : — 

* The clairvoyant is merely an intermediary, and his informa- 
tion is largely obtained from spirits of the departed accompanying 
the sitter. Much therefore depends on the conditions furnished by 
the sitter. This cannot be too clearly understood. 



298 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Clairvoyant' s Description Signification 



(a) An old lady is here, a 
relation of yours, medium 
height, not stout, full cheeks 
which sink in near chin, wears 
a thin gold ring. You have 
an oil-painting of this lady in 
your house, in a broad gold 
frame. It measures 2 feet 8 
inches in length and 2 feet 4 
inches in width. 



{a) This is a good descrip- 
tion of my grandmother 
Coates, as far as it goes. She 
wore a ring of extreme thin- 
ness and narrowness which 
we have yet ; we have an 
oil-painting of her in a broad 
gold frame. As soon as I 
reached home I got out a two- 
foot rule and proceeded to 
measure it. I was simply 
astounded to find it exactly 
2 feet 8 inches long and 2 
feet 4 inches wide ! ! / had 
never measured the picture be- 
fore, and did not previously 
know its size. I am confident 
that no rule had been laid 
upon it since it left the maker 
thirty-three years before. 
This is a most remarkable 
instance of the extreme ac- 
curacy of which clairvoyance 
is capable. 



(6) A gentleman here, about 
seventy-three, short beard, 
ruddy complexion. Used a 
stick when he went out. He 
liked a dog. Paper in his 
sick-room a light colour. He 
lay on an iron bed, but was 
not long on this. When he 
was dying he clasped his 
hands over his head, looked 
up, and said : " Ready." 
There were three persons 
round him at the time. 



(b) This is the exact de- 
scription of my wife's father, 
Mr Frank Burnett, of the 
events at his illness and the 
scene at his death. He was 
seventy-two, had short beard, 
and very fine rosy complexion. 
He generally carried a stick, 
and had quite a collection of 
sticks, some of which he made 
himself. He was very fond of 
dogs. They were his life-long 
and constant companions. 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIR AUDIENCE 299 

There was a light-coloured 
paper on his sick-room. He 
lay at first on an iron bed, 
but this was changed in a few 
days for a wood one as the 
iron one proved too short. 
When he died he raised him- 
self up, clasped his hands 
above his head and sank back 
dead. Three persons were 
present in the room at the 
time. 

(c) You have had a narrow (c) I have had three narrow 

escape from drowning. If escapes. Once I was found 
not, be careful. unconscious on the bottom. 

On another occasion I was 
rescued as I was going down 
for the third time, and on the 
last occasion I was dropped 
into a raging river with my 
overcoat on, into 15 feet of 
water less than 100 yards 
above the falls. I was saved 
by clutching the branch of a 
tree. 

This, from a man whom I had never heard of an hour 
before and who was an entire stranger to both myself and 
my wife, was, as I think even the most hardened sceptic 
will allow, quite sufficiently remarkable. 

On another subsequent occasion, I still withholding my 
name and address, he said : " You have missed a gold 
watch ; it was taken by a woman who has stayed in 
your house. [Here he gave age and description.] She 
now regrets having taken it and would restore it if she 
could. 

Acting on this information, I instituted an inquiry, and 
the gold watch was found in the person's possession and 
recovered by me after being lost for several years, and 



300 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

another person who had been wrongly suspected was thus 
cleared of suspicion ! ! (page 139). 

My wife's clairvoyance has, up to the last fifteen months 
or so, been a constant feature for years, and we have had 
many marvellously evidential exhibitions of it. On several 
occasions we have been able to give evidence of survival 
to seekers. A case in point occurred not very long ago, 
when a gentleman visited us, together with his wife, and we 
sat for psychic communication. Very soon his father, Mr 

J. S , who had recently passed away, and his sister, 

who had died a week after her father's passing, both 
manifested and gave telling evidence of their identity of 
a nature too private for publication, but of which neither 
myself nor my wife had, nor could have, any knowledge. 
One item, however, can be published. I asked the father 
to give us some incident in his son's life of which we could 
have on possible knowledge. 

The word " Amoneh " was given us. Neither I nor my 
wife could make anything of it. After we had guessed 
fruitlessly, the son said : " This is very wonderful and very 
evidential. He would spell it just that way, he means 
'Ammonia.'" "What has that got to do with things?" 
I said. He replied : " It is most convincing to me. I have 
good reason to remember the ' Amoneh,' for when I was 
about eight years of age my father gave me a dose of strong 
liquid ammonia in mistake for some medicine and nearly 
poisoned me." Almost immediately after my wife became 
clairvoyant — which has only happened twice or thrice at 
these sittings — and saw a tall figure of a man so emaciated 
as to frighten her. She said his hand was like that of a 
skeleton, it was so wasted. We asked who it was, and the 

reply came: "John S ." My wife shrank from the 

figure and said : "I am sure that this is not Mr S ; he 

had a fairly long beard, and this man, I see, is clipped short." 
The son quickly said : "It is my father. From being a big 
stalwart man, during his illness he wasted away to an 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 301 

absolute skeleton, weighing only about seven stone, and 
a week or two before he died we cut off his beard." These 
facts were entirely unknown to either myself or my wife, and 
neither of us had seen him for a long time before his death. 
The following experience was sent me a few weeks ago 
(April, 1918) by Mr H. J. S. Keily, of 20 Chalk Hill, Bushey. 
Having recently suffered bereavement, he became interested 
in Survival, and wrote me on the subject. After some 
correspondence, in which he said that he was very diffident 
as to endeavouring to obtain the evidence of survival, he 
at length informed me that he had decided to make the 
attempt and that in two days' time he was going under 
an assumed name to see a clairvoyant, and asked whether 
he should take his son with him, as he was a strong Church- 
man and very sceptical on the subject. I replied to the 
effect that if his son were not bitterly hostile to the subject, 
and had an open mind, seeking the truth, and prepared to 
weigh evidence, his presence would do no harm. Mr Keily 
did not give me the name of the psychic whom he proposed 
seeing. 

A week afterwards I got a letter from him saying that 
they had been to see the psychic— Mrs Brittain (London) — 
and had had a very remarkable experience which had 
very deeply impressed both of them. Here are the results 
tabulated from notes taken by the son. 

Clairvoyante's Description Signification 

(a) A lady is here, says she (a) My mother's name was 

is your mother, gives the name Mary. My father's name was 
Mary, and as connected with John William, always called 
John and William. Grey eyes, John. Wilham was her half- 
nice brown hair, religious brother, very dear to her. 
but narrow views, very fond John and William were 
of violets, passed over some Indian officers, much together, 
years ago. William practically died in 

John's arms. Mother had 
grey eyes and nice brown hair. 



302 



MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 



(b) Turning now to my 
son the clairvoyante said : 
" There is a young lady named 
Nellie near you — pretty, loves 
you and is trying to speak 
to you. I cannot understand 
her very well, for her speech 
is rather indistinct. She died 
of consumption, seems to have 
flowers all round her. 



Was religious, with Evangeli- 
cal views. Often had violets 
on her writing-table. She 
died eleven years ago. 

(b) My son had a sweet- 
heart named Nellie Murley. 
She was very fond of him. 
She died of consumption of 
the throat. The room in 
which she lay before being 
coffined was literally smothered 
in flowers. 



(c) A young officer is near 
you, wants to speak to you : 
handsome, has bright eyes 
and very nice hair, well 
brushed up, medium height. 
He is standing by a broken 
aeroplane propeller. He was 
killed in England. 



(c) My son had a friend an 
officer in the Flying Corps. 
Distinctly good-looking and 
very well - groomed hair, 
medium height. He was acci- 
dentally killed on Salisbury 
Plain by the premature start- 
ing of his aeroplane, the 
propeller of which struck him 
on the head, causing instant 
death. 



(d) A very tall broad- 
shouldered man wishes to 
speak to you. He has bright 
auburn hair and moustache, 
with deep-set eyes. He says 
his friend's name is Charlie. 



(d) My son had a very in- 
timate friend, now dead, who 
was very tall and very broad- 
shouldered. His hair and 
slight moustache were a light 
reddish colour, and his eyes 
were deep -set. My son's 
name is Charles. 



(e) I see a uniform close to 
you, nobody in it. It is blue, 
buttons and braid shining. 
Yes ; a naval uniform. Do 
you know anyone named 



(e) My son had a very close 
friend, who joined the Royal 
Navy when the war broke out. 
His name was "Wilfred and 
his age about thirty-two. 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIR AUDIENCE 303 

Wilfred, age about thirty- Nothing has been heard of 
two ? him for some considerable 

time. The clairvoyante when 
asked if he were dead, replied 
that she did not know. 



Hundreds of similar experiences are on record, testified 
to by capable witnesses in every position in life, from the 
highest to the lowest. It would be easy to fill a volume 
of several hundred pages with similar records. I have 
met and corresponded with scores of persons during the 
last few years who have obtained evidence of the survival 
of their dear ones, evidence which has afforded them un- 
speakable consolation — consolation which they have other- 
wise been unable to obtain. Personally, I have had 
evidence clear and unmistakable by these and other forms 
of manifestation of the survival of most of my deceased 
relatives and friends (vide also Light, 5th April 1919)- 

It is puerile for objectors to raise the cry of "fraud," 
"devil," "telepathy" or "subliminal." All these "ex- 
planations " have been shown to be futile, and those who 
raise them merely proclaim their own ignorance, inexperi- 
ence, or bigotry. 

As I have previously remarked, clairvoyance and clair- 
audience give evidence not only of human survival, and 
personal identity, but also of the existence of beings who 
not only have a knowledge of the past and the present 
but also can accurately predict the future and give informa- 
tion entirely unknown both to the seer, or clairvoyant, 
and to the sitter or investigator. Many of the cases 
cited in this book bear on this fact. Here is another, 
taken from The Psychic Gazette for June, 1913. 

The Rev. Howard J. H. Truscott, Vicar of St Catharine's, 
Hatcham, testifies in the public press that a Paris psychic, 
twelve months before, told him as follows : — 

On the 6th of May 19 13 you will lose something 



304 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

particularly dear to you, but you will also save something 
very dear to you. 

On 24th May 1913 you will receive a royal message. 

Between May 18th and 24th a prominent politician will 
communicate something of interest to you." 

This was marvellously fulfilled to the letter as follows : — 

On the 6th of May 1913, as the Vicar testifies, his church 
was burnt down by suffragettes, but he saved a keepsake 
from the chancel, a valuable service-book which was found 
undamaged, though everything else around was charred. 

Between 18th and 24th May 1913 he had communications 
from Queen Alexandra and Mr Balfour ! 

In response to my letter of inquiry, I received the 
following : 

St Catharine's Vicarage, 
Hatcham, S.E. 14. 
Dear Sir, — In reference to your letter, the account I gave 
about the fire, etc., in May, 1913 was correct in every detail 
and particular. Faithfully yours, 

Howard J. H. Truscott. 
24^ May 1918. 

I have personally had experience of many similar fore- 
casts, sometimes made more than a year in advance, which 
have been fulfilled with an accuracy and minuteness of 
detail which has been awe-inspiring. This phase of psychic 
manifestation kills the telepathic and subliminal theories 
at once, and it becomes perfectly obvious that similar 
agencies are at work to-day to those which enabled the 
seers and prophets of Old and New Testament times to 
reveal the future (page 262). 

The statement is sometimes made that clairvoyance, 
clairaudience and apparitions are similar to the hallucina- 
tions of the insane. This statement applies equally to 
the clairvoyance, clairaudience and apparitions recorded in 
the Old and New Testaments, and labels Christ, prophets 
and apostles as madmen. 



CLAIRVOYANCE AND CLAIRAUDIENCE 305 

Hallucinations are subjective and from within. Clair- 
voyance is from without. The hallucinations of the insane 
do not forecast events months or years ahead which are 
accurately fulfilled ; nor do they accurately describe 
persons, or give accurate information of events, previously 
entirely unknown to either seer or sitter, nor can they be 
photographed. Such statements show complete ignorance 
of the subject, reflect the utmost discredit on those who 
make them, and are beneath contempt. 

Not only have I had the good fortune to confirm the 
reality of clairvoyant vision by means of the photographic 
plate, but on occasions I have been privileged to see the 
figure under test conditions, as will be narrated. 

It will be perceived from the contents of this chapter 
that much valuable evidence can be obtained through 
clairvoyance. It is almost needless to say that this in- 
vestigation requires some little trouble and care ; in fact, 
the same care and patience that one would employ on any 
other important business. Those fatally clever people 
who dismiss a thing after half-an-hour's trifling had 
better leave both this and any other important quest 
severely alone. But for those who are in earnest and who 
are prepared, without prejudice, and with an open mind, 
to make an extended, patient, and faithful investigation, 
there awaits a rich reward. 



XIX 

THE EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 

And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my 
beloved Son: hear him. — Luke ix. 35. 

Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified 
it, and will glorify it again. — John xii. 28. 

And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing 
a voice, but seeing no man. — Acts ix. 7. 

THERE are three kinds or types of voice manifesta- 
tion whereby psychic communications are made : 
(1) The clairaudient voice, discussed in the last 
chapter ; (2) the direct voice, where no figure is seen, 
which voice is generally heard by several persons at the 
same time, or is accompanied by other phenomena showing 
it to be external and objective ; (3) the materialisation 
voice, in which the materialised figure speaks just as a 
mortal would do. 

It is with the second type, the direct voice, that I propose 
to deal in this chapter. We must remember that we are deal- 
ing with spiritual beings, who are not " immaterial entities," 
as the dictionaries of past generations wrongly informed us, 
but who are possessed of a material body (page 265), and 
not confined to one method of manifestation. Just as 
mortals can (1) use actual speech ; (2) transmit the said 
speech by wire or wireless telephone ; (3) record and re- 
produce speech by phonograph, so spirit beings are not 
confined to one method of voice production. 

These voices, from the clairaudient, observed to come 
from the moving lips of the clairvoyantly seen figure but 
inaudible to a bystander ; through the direct, audible to 
all present ; down to the materialisation, coming from a 
fully materialised figure ; are probably the result of varying 
degrees of materialisation of the spirit body. 

Occasionally there are spontaneous manifestations of 

306 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 307 

the direct voice. Some of the most wonderful on record 
have occurred in my own house, but as they were accom- 
panied by other remarkable phenomena, and are linked 
together in an evidential series, they have been noticed in 
Chapter XL Of late years the phenomenon of the direct 
voice has been brought greatly into prominence by the de- 
velopment of psychics who are especially endowed with this 
form of psychic faculty and in whose presence the direct 
voice can readily be heard. In all cases, spontaneous or 
otherwise, the presence of someone who is consciously or 
unconsciously a psychic is necessary. The same statement 
holds good in all the cases of the voice phenomena of the 
Old and New Testaments. The possession of this faculty is 
acquired by no virtue of its possessor. It is an endowment. 
This and like psychic powers may be developed, if latent, 
and are apparently due to a certain quality, or attunement, 
of the physical organism. As Vice-Admiral Usborne Moore 
says of Mrs Wriedt, the most notable psychic for this form 
of psychic manifestation : 

It is difficult to know what her personality has to do with 
the phenomena, for she never goes into the trance condition 
and talks naturally throughout. What we do know is that 
we cannot hear a whisper when she is out of the house, but if 
she is in the room we can distinguish the voices in full day- 
light or in darkness. In the latter they speak longer, louder 
and clearer than in the light. When the room is made dark, 
then we can not only hear the voices, but can often see those 
to whom they belong. * 

Through the efforts of Vice-Admiral Usborne Moore 
Mrs Wriedt visited this country in 1912 and 1913, and 
remained some time after her second visit, returning on 
account of the war. It was my privilege to have several 
sittings with her, to which I shall refer in the course of this 
chapter. A full account of many of the results obtained 

* The Voices, by Vice-Admiral Usborne Moore. Watts & Co. 



308 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

by various sitters is to be found in the Admiral's book, 
The Voices. 

Before touching on my own experiences I shall give that 
of others taken, by kind permission of Mrs Moore, from 
The Voices, and the Admiral's previous work, Glimpses of 
the Next State* a work of deepest interest. 

My first testimony is of Count Chedo Miyatovich. He 
says (The Voices, page 3) : 

By profession I am a diplomatist, having represented my 
country, Servia, at the Court of the King of Roumania, at the 
Sublime Porte, three times at the Court of Queen Victoria, 
and once at the Court of King Edward VII. I am a member 
of several learned societies on the Continent and in London. 
I mention these personal facts to show that I am a man accus- 
tomed to weigh facts and words in full consciousness of my 
responsibility. Having heard that the remarkable psychic 
Mrs Wriedt was at Wimbledon I arranged for an appointment 
at 10.30 a.m. on May 16th, 1912. I went there accompanied 
by my friend Dr Hinkovitch, a distinguished barrister of 
Agram, just arrived in London. I and Dr Hinkovitch sat near 
each other. Mrs Wriedt sat on a chair near me. She started a 
musical clock [musical vibrations help. 2 Kings iii. 1 5 — C.L.T.] 
and put all the lights out. When a beautiful melody of a 
sacred character was finished Mrs Wriedt said that we should be 
able not only to hear but also to see some spirit friends. 
" Yes," she continued, " here is the spirit of a young woman. 
She nods to you, Mr Miyatovich, do you not see her ? " I did 
not, but my friend saw an oblong piece of illuminated mist. 
" She whispers to me," continued Mrs Wriedt, " that her name 
is Mayell. Adela or Ada Mayell." I was astounded. Only 
three weeks before died Miss Ada Mayell, a very dear friend of 
mine, to whom I was deeply attached. 

The next moment a light appeared from behind Mrs Wriedt 
and moved from left to right. There in that slowly moving 
light was, not the spirit, but the very person of my friend 
William T. Stead, not wrapt in white, but in his usual walking 
costume. Both I and Mrs Wriedt exclaimed loudly for joy. 

* Glimpses of the Next State, by Vice- Admiral Usborne Moore. 
Watts & Co. 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 309 

Hinkovitch, who only knew Stead from photos, said : "Yes, 
that is Mr Stead. " 

Mr Stead nodded to me and disappeared. Half-a-minute 
later he appeared again, looking at me and bowing ; again he 
appeared and was seen by all three of us more clearly than 
before. Then we all three distinctly heard these words : 

" Yes, I am Stead. William T. Stead. My dear friend 
Miyatovich, I came here expressly to give you fresh proof that 
there is life after death. You always hesitated to accept that 
truth.'* 

I interrupted him, saying : " But you know I always be- 
lieved what you said to me." 

" Yes," he continued, " you believed because I was telling 
you something about it ; now I come here to bring you proof, 
that you should not only believe but know " (pronouncing this 
word with great emphasis) "that there really is a life after 
death. Here is Adela Mayell, who wishes to speak to you." 

Stead never knew Miss Ada Mayell in life, nor had he ever 
heard her name before. She then spoke to me in her affection- 
ate and generous manner, trying to reassure me on certain 
questions which had sadly preoccupied my mind since her 
death. 

Mrs Wriedt and Hinkovitch heard every word. Then, to 
my own and my Croatian friend's astonishment, a loud voice 
began to talk to him in the Croatian language. It was an 
old friend, a physician by profession, who died suddenly from 
heart disease. They continued for some time the conversation 
in their native tongue, of which I heard and understood every 
word. Mrs Wriedt, for the first time in her life, heard how the 
Croatian language sounds. I and my Croatian friend were 
deeply impressed by what we witnessed that day, May 16th. 
I spoke of it to my friends as the most wonderful experience of 
my life. I spoke of it to the most scientific woman of Germany, 
Frau Professor Margarette Selenka, who had just returned 
from Teneriffe. Madame Selenka arrived in London to hear 
all the details of the Titanic catastrophe, in which her friend 
Stead perished. By arrangement with Mrs Wriedt, I and 
Madame Selenka had a sitting at 8 p.m. on May 24th. 

After a short time from the beginning of the sitting we all 
saw Mr Stead appear, but hardly for more than ten seconds. He 
reappeared again more clearly, but not so clear as on May 16th. 
Stead had a long conversation with Madame Selenka and 



310 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

a short one with me. Then Miss Ada Mayell spoke to me. 
After her my own mother came and spoke to me in our own 
Servian language most affectionately. 

Madame Selenka had a very affecting conversation with 
her late husband, Professor Lorentz Selenka of the Munich 
University, and also with her own mother, who died last year 
in Hamburg. A friend of Madame Selenka came singing a 
German song and asked her to join him as they used to do in 
old times, and Madame Selenka did join him singing. 

I wish to state publicly that I am deeply grateful to the 
wonderful gift of Mrs Wriedt for having enabled me to obtain 
from my unforgettable friend, W. T. Stead, a convincing proof 
that there is a life after death, and for having given me the 
almost heavenly joy of hearing the affectionate words of my 
dear mother in our own tongue and in getting another and 
sacred proof of the continuance of the living individuality of 
one of the most charming, selfless and generous persons whom 
I have ever known in my life. 

Royal Societies Club, St James's, S.W. 



Count Miyatovich here states that Madame Selenka 
and one of the manifesting spirits sang a song together ! 
This will sound incredible to those who are new to the 
subject. I can confirm it by my own experience both at 
home and in London. In my own house in May 1914 my 
brother-in-law came and in his fine deep bass voice joined 
in the last two lines of several verses of a hymn, in the 
presence of myself and wife and four other witnesses. On 
this occasion we had a well-known northern psychic for 
the direct voice with us, but the voice came without the 
trumpet. 

Again, on 10th May 1917 (vide posted), during my sitting 
with Mrs Harris, the man's deep voice began to sing a 
song, in which his wife soon joined. It was thrilling to 
hear the voices of the incarnate and discarnate singing 
together, a never-to-be-forgotten experience. 

On page 191 of The Voices occurs another instance, 
related by Mr Alec Munro : 






EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 311 

The little daughter of a gentleman came. After distressing- 
preliminary recognitions she said : " You do not sing so much 
now, father. Do you think we might sing one of the songs we 
used to sing together ? " On the father saying he would, there 
began surely one of the most extraordinary duets that was ever 
listened to. The girl's voice was clear and perfectly musical, 
and the song Annie Laurie was rendered beautifully. 

Does the orthodox reader — the inexperienced — cry im- 
possible ? Let him think of the angel song that greeted 
the birth of the Christ, and the song of the discarnate 
listened to by St John. 

It may be necessary here to explain a few points with 
reference to these direct-voice and other phenomena 
manifested in the presence of Mrs Wriedt. Firstly be it 
noted that the voice can be heard in broad daylight in her 
presence as well as in the dark, but that it is not so loud, 
free or continuous. Once it has been established that the 
voice can be heard in daylight, and under test conditions, 
the sitters prefer to sit in darkness, owing to the better 
results obtained, and also to the fact that lights, etherialisa- 
tions, or materialisations of the communicating personalities 
which would be difficult and of rare occurrence in full light 
are thus frequently seen. I have had the direct voice 
absolutely shouting in my own house in daylight in the 
presence of myself and several witnesses, also we have had 
repeated etherialisations and materialisations in broad 
daylight and strong lamplight. This shows the presence 
of very great psychic power. In our case, howevej, it 
has always been of rare occurrence, spontaneous and never 
under control. With Mrs Wriedt and other powerful 
psychics, the manifestation, while not so strong in day- 
light, is under control, almost constantly available, and 
splendidly evidential. Several investigators have testified 
to the fact that the voice is heard in Mrs Wriedt's presence 
both in gaslight and daylight. On this head Admiral 
Moore says {Glimpses oj the Next State, page 277) : 



312 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Tried first in gaslight, putting the small end of the trumpet 
to my ear. There were undoubtedly voices in the tube, but 
I could only catch the names, "William Roger Drake" and 
"Mary Ella." 

Again, on page 368, he writes : 

Thursday, January 11, 1911, 2.15 p.m. — First I tried the 
trumpet in full light, putting the small end to my left ear and 
balancing the end on the back of a chair. Mrs Wriedt sat 
close to me on my right. I heard the voices of Iola and Dr 
Sharp quite satisfactorily. 

This in broad daylight. In the visit of Mrs Wriedt to this 
country during 1912-1913 many persons made the test of 
hearing the voices in the light, Mr William Jeffrey, of 
Glasgow, hearing them both in daylight and electric light. 

These voices are heard both directly without the aid of a 
trumpet, and also through an aluminium trumpet, which is 
used for the purpose of magnifying their volume,* many 
of them being faint. The trumpet often alters the tone 
or timbre of the voice, and when the tone of the voice is 
not recognised this is generally the cause. The disguising 
effect of a speaking trumpet or megaphone upon the human 
voice is well known. I have heard the spirit voice of my 
father so absolutely exact in tone as to thrill me through 
and through. Tonal individuality of voice is one of those 
things practically impossible to effectively imitate, even if 
the psychic had known the person in earth life, which is 
almost invariably not the case. 

Very often, however, these voices come entirely in- 
dependent of the trumpet, sometimes whispering in one's 
ear, at others of such remarkable power, depth and volume 
as to make the room resound again. Often the voice will 
be sounding loudly in the room, either through or without 
the trumpet, and at the same time two or three of the sitters 
will have voices whispering in their ears and conversing on 

* Cf. Rev. iv. 1 : " The first voice I heard was as of a trumpet 
talking to me"; Rev. i. 10 : "A great voice as of a trumpet." 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 313 

intimate and private family matters. Frequently, two 
or more voices are heard speaking loudly at the same time 
and often the voice is heard speaking at the same time 
that Mrs Wriedt is conversing or explaining matters. 

The test has also been made of filling the psychic's mouth 
with a specially prepared liquid containing a chemical, 
which changes colour when held some time in the mouth, 
the psychic's hands being securely tied at the same time, 
as in the case of Mrs Harris, reported recently by Dr 
Abraham Wallace and the Rev. C. H. St John Mildmay and 
nine others in Light for 2nd February 191 8, evidential voices 
still being produced under these conditions. These facts 
conclusively prove that the voice is not produced by ven- 
triloquism, while the fact that the voices sound in daylight 
and gaslight, with no one present save the sitter and the 
psychic, disposes once for all of the theory of a confederate. 

I have heard all these phases of voice manifestation, 
in addition to the spontaneous ones in daylight in my 
own house. Sometimes one voice has quite drowned the 
other sounding at the same time. I had a wonderful ex- 
perience of this at a sitting with Mrs Harris on 10th May 
1917. A loud, deep, man's voice had been talking to a 
lady of position, on the opposite side of the circle from 
where I sat, for a long time, concerning the affairs of his 
considerable estate and also concerning a child. The 
details were of a most private nature, and just the kind of 
thing which no one would make public voluntarily, and 
which neither the psychic nor anyone present would be 
likely to know a word about. This lady came to me after 
the sitting and informed me that it was all most wonder- 
fully evidential. During this long conversation suddenly 
the voice of Harmony — the young Indian girl — began to 
sound close in front of me, talking rapidly and earnestly 
to me about the publication of my books. It was exactly 
as though a young girl were kneeling at my knee with her 
face upturned and not more than a foot away from mine 



314 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

as I bent down to listen to her. She talked in this way most 
earnestly to me for several minutes, but so loud and deep 
was the man's voice that it drowned half of what Harmony 
said, as both voices were sounding simultaneously. I passed 
my hand in front of me several times during this experience, 
but though I had the sensation of talking with a being 
closely face to face, my hand met nothing but empty spare. 
I have also heard several languages spoken at one sitting. 

Should the investigator so desire, he is at liberty to thor- 
oughly search the room before the proceedings commence, 
and to sit with his back against the locked door, and have 
the key in his pocket ; but it does not take long to convince 
one who investigates these phenomena seriously, that, 
with a psychic such as Mrs Wriedt, all such precautions 
are superfluous. For the evidence that is borne in upon 
one with irresistible force is not dependent on searches of 
rooms and locked doors, but on the information given by 
the voices and contained in the messages. This information, 
dealing as it does with all manner of intimately private 
affairs, sometimes dating back forty or fifty years, and at 
others of the utmost delicacy, very soon gives the quietus 
to any theory save the spiritual one. 

Writing on this head Admiral Moore says {Glimpses of 
the Next State, page 357) : 

On this my third visit to Mrs Wriedt in America all my 
relatives that I wished to hear from spoke to me at some time 
or another, touching on all sorts of subjects of family interest. 
Iola (a relative who had " died " thirty-seven years before) 
talked daily at considerable length, often standing before me, 
a radiant figure, clearly enunciating her sentences in pure 
English. When I was a boy a family tangle took place which 
puzzled me very much. Up to this time (1911) I had not 
even suspected the real truth. 

Iola in the course of four or five interviews solved the 
enigma, and brought three witnesses from spirit life who spoke 
at some length to prove that she was right. Dates were given 
and motives explained, and I possessed sufficient knowledge 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 315 

of what had taken place at that time to be able to assure 
myself — now that light was thrown on certain incidents — that 
all they said was true. No one living but myself knew anything 
about it. ... If I had no other experience to record in support 
of the doctrines of spirit existence and survival, this story, told 
in clear accents and exhibiting intimate knowledge of terrene 
life with all its mistakes and failures, would have been sufficient 
to settle my belief for ever. 



As the result of my own experience of the whole range 
of the phenomena, I can unhesitatingly confirm the 
Admiral's words, and can speak with the same emphasis. 

It has been said by those who have had little personal 
experience of these things, and have not fully weighed the 
evidence, that all the information is obtained from our 
subliminal self (this theory is a very usefnl one to cover 
ignorance or lack of experience). It is blown to atoms 
by the facts (1) that information is very often imparted 
of which one never had any previous knowledge, (2) that 
information and advice are often given which are distasteful 
to and absolutely against the judgment and settled opinion 
of the investigator (cf. Voices, page 14). (3) that future events 
are accurately foretold. 

Come we now more particularly to the manifestations 
of Mr W. T. Stead after his passing in the Titanic disaster. 
We probably had indications of the approach and com- 
pletion of the tragedy. At any rate this is what occurred. 
On 8th April 1912, about 11 p.m., our two servants, Ida and 
Martha, who were in the big nursery with the children, 
heard a loud crying, sobbing and wailing proceeding from 
the passage and landing outside the nursery door. They 
describe it as like someone in great trouble and distress. 
It went on for ten minutes or more, and then ceased. The 
girl Martha had only just come, and knew nothing about 
our psychic experiences, we being careful not to tell new- 
comers anything about them. I questioned both girls 
straitly, especially the new one, but could not shake their 



316 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

testimony. And they afterwards affirmed the same on 
oath. 

The Titanic sailed from Southampton on ioth April. 
The next entry in my journal is under date Monday, 
15th April 1912, as follows : — 

About 11.30 wife came running to me in alarm (children and 
servants had gone to bed) saying that a man with thick eye- 
brows and a beard under his chin and round his face had passed 
through the kitchen where she was. He had on a greyish or 
mixture tweed suit, with a short, round library coat. Shortly 
after this, while in the kitchen, she heard wailing, crying sounds, 
and a kind of moaning. It sounded like many people in great 
trouble, and was loud, seeming to be in the house, but she 
could not locate it definitely. She heard it both in the kitchen 
and in the passage. 

At this time we were all in absolute ignorance of the 
Titanic disaster and did not hear the news until the follow- 
ing morning. On 16th April I enter in my journal : 

Just heard of dreadful disaster to the Titanic and feared 
loss of nearly 2000 lives. Mr Stead is reported lost. I sin- 
cerely hope this is not the case, as I have arranged to be at 
his house, with Mrs Wriedt, at the end of May. 

Alas ! it was only too true, and soon the news of the 
awful tragedy, with all its poignant details of heroism and 
suffering, thrilled the civilised world. 

The Titanic sank in longitude 50 degrees 14 minutes 
west of Greenwich, 49 degrees west of Weston, giving a 
time difference of 3 hours 15 minutes. She sank at 2.20 a.m. 
on the morning of the 15th April, which would be about 
1 1.5 p.m. 14th April by our time at Weston. The maids 
heard the wailing and crying about n p.m. My wife 
heard the wailing and crying and saw the apparition about 
11.30 p.m. Afterward, when shown photos of Mr Stead, my 
wife said that the apparition she saw bore a strong resem- 
blance to them. 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 317 

Survivors say that as the ship went down — 

There fell on our ears the most appalling noise that human 
being ever heard. 

A great chorus of human agony, a great and bitter cry went 
wailing up to the black dome of night, as 1600 human beings 
were plunged into the sea of death. 

It was nothing but a great weltering mass of drowning 
people, all struggling. The sounds rent our hearts. Terrible 
shrieks and a chorus of groans arose for an hour. 

We only thought of rowing harder to escape those haunting 
death cries which wrung our very souls. 

The cries of anguish of the unhappy passengers redoubled, 
sounding like the singing of a great dirge by a very large choir. 

A forecast of these cries would seem to have been first 
simulated to us, as a note of impending doom, and a repro- 
duction of the actual cries afterwards given us, as a sign 
of the doom accomplished. 

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, 
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness, 
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, 
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again, and a silence. 

Mr Stead, when last seen on the ship by the occupants of 
the last boat to push off — 

stood alone at the edge of the deck in silence, and what 
seemed to me a prayerful attitude, or one of profound medita- 
tion. My last glimpse of the Titanic showed him still standing 
in the same attitude and place. 

On 31st May, at Wimbledon, Mr Stead addressed me by 
name in his vigorous, well-known, characteristic voice, wel- 
coming me to his house ! The voice was loud, clear, distinct 
and unmistakable. The evidence for the return of W. T. 
Stead is of the most positive kind. His first appearance 
was to Mrs Wriedt and her host on 17th April 1912, in New 
Y-.rk, just three days after his passing. On 6th May, 



318 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

immediately after Mrs Wriedt's arrival in England, he was 
both seen and heard at Wimbledon, first by Admiral Moore 
at 10.30 a.m. and in the evening by his daughter, Miss 
Estelle Stead, as reported in Light of 18th May and also in 
Nash's Magazine for July, 1912. In the 'evening there were 
several witnesses present, and the Admiral writes (The 
Voices, page 19) : 

At least forty minutes were taken up by Stead talking to 
his daughter. I could not help hearing every word. It was 
the most painful and at the same time the most realistic, con- 
vincing conversation I have ever heard during my investiga- 
tions. The first time he came it was to give directions to his 
daughter for the disposal of his private papers. Miss Estelle 
was naturally much agitated, and her grief at last reacted upon 
her father, who uttered a loud shout : " O my God ! " and 
the manifestation ended. 

With reference to this Miss Estelle Stead writes me, under 
date 3rd June 19 18 : 

Yes, Admiral Moore's account of my father's conversation 
with me, with regard to his affairs, is quite correct. 

E. W. Stead. 

Count Miyatovich's testimony has already been given. 
Many other persons both heard and saw Mr Stead during 
these two memorable visits of Mrs Wriedt to this country. 
Space alone prevents us from reproducing all the accounts. 
The following testimony is from General Sir Alfred E. Turner 
(The Voices, page 160). Writing from Carlyle House, 
Chelsea Embankment, he says : 

About ten days after the foundering of the monster ship I 
held a small and carefully selected sitting at my house. Mr 
Stead's private secretary was among the sitters. We had 
hardly commenced when a voice, which apparently came from 
behind my right shoulder, exclaimed : "I am so happy to be 
with you again." The voice was unmistakably that of Stead, 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 319 

who immediately began to tell us the events of the dire moments 
when the leviathan settled down. There was a short, sharp 
struggle to gain his breath and immediately afterwards he 
came to his senses in another stage of existence. He was 
surrounded by hundreds of beings who, like himself, had passed 
over to the bourne. Stead then had a long conversation 
with his secretary. Asked by me if he would show himself to 
us, he replied : " Not to-night, but if you go to Cambridge 
House I will do so." 

I went to Cambridge House and, as he had promised, Stead 
appeared twice. He was dressed in his usual attire, so familiar 
to all his friends, and looked supremely happy. 

After this Mrs Wriedt sat twice at my house. At the first 
sitting was a lady who had had no experience and begged me 
to let her attend in the hope of getting communication with 
her lost one. 

At first voices came assuring us that his passing, contrary to 
rumour, was accidental. A few minutes later the voice of the 
young man himself — unmistakable to his mother, for such the 
lady was — was heard, and son and mother had a long conversa- 
tion, heard by all of us, during which he expressed his wishes 
concerning the completion of a book, of which no one present 
knew anything save the mother. The circumstances of the 
communication were beautiful and touching in the extreme, 
and I am sure there was not a dry eye in the room. Let scorners 
and scoffers contemplate this case, and the most callous of 
them will not mock at the bereaved mother and the comfort 
that this communion with her beloved son brought to her 
wounded heart. 

On the second occasion I sat alone with Mrs Wriedt. Many 
of those " I have lost awhile " spoke to me, and John King 
and others gave me very strong advice which cast serious 
reflections on one I thoroughly believed in and trusted. What 
he impressed upon me turned out absolutely true. Had I 
followed his advice I should have been saved from infinite 
trouble and disillusion later (page 139). 

I can bear the strongest possible testimony to the psychic 
power, perfect honesty and good faith of Mrs Wriedt. 

In the summer of 1912 Mrs Wriedt went to Scotland. 
On 17th July 1912 Mr Stead was again seen and heard 



320 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

by fourteen persons in the house of Professor James Coates 
of Rothesay, the well-known author and investigator, 
On this occasion he says : 

Mr Stead showed himself twice within a short time, the last 
appearance being clearly defined, and none will readily forget 
the clear, ringing tones of his voice. There in our own home, 
and in the presence of fourteen sane and thoughtful people, 
Mr Stead has manifested and proved in his own person that the 
dead do return. The names and addresses of several other 
witnesses on this occasion are given {Light, 17th May 1913). 

The following experience is given by Colonel E. R. 
Johnson, of 26 Aubrey Walk, Kensington. A careful and 
accurate observer, interested in several branches of science, 
he had seven sittings with Mrs Wriedt in 19 12 and twelve 
sittings in 1913. He writes {The Voices, page 282) : 

During May and June I attended twelve sittings with Mrs 
Wriedt at Wimbledon. I had sustained conversation with 
four of my relatives, some of these lasting for over half-an-hour. 
The total number of these amounted to sixteen. Twelve people, 
nearly all intimate friends, also spoke to me, and I have noted 
the names of twenty others who spoke. On one occasion the 
voices of two communicators, of Dr Sharp and of jMrs Wri edt, • 
were practically speaking at the same time. 

The voices varied much in character : those speaking for the 
first time were often difficult to hear. The voices of old people, 
men, women and children were recognisable at once, and all 
improved after their first or second visit very much. English 
was generally used. I also heard French, Italian, Dutch, 
German, Servian and Croatian. Three of these languages I 
recognised myself. Three dogs of mine, which died some thirty 
years ago, came on three or four occasions. They all barked, 
and one was placed for a short time on my knees. Its cold 
nose also touched my cheek. 

In the 191 2 sittings the colour, sizes and other character- 
istics of these dogs were described so instantaneously that 
there was not the least doubt as to their identity. An Indian 
child named Blossom came several times. She manifested 
with a loud, high-pitched cry, musical and childlike. In 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 321 

1912 she said that I should go to a funeral within a week. 
This was quite accurate — a distinguished military officer died 
two days after that sitting, and I witnessed the funeral six 
days after. At one of these 191 3 sittings I had brought in 
my pocket a small shell with a peculiar toothed mouth, which 
I took out and held in my hand (room in complete darkness), 
asking her what it was. 

She first said it was a bone, but when told this was not 
correct she said : "A shell." Asked for further particulars, 
she said that it had "five teeth in its mouth." I had not 
counted them, but the number was right. 

While walking round the garden at Wimbledon I found 
embedded in the soil a perfect palaeolithic flint, evidently a 
harpoon head with one barb, a good many thousand years old, 
and as no one saw me find it, and I was careful not to show 
it to anyone, I could not imagine a better test. Blossom at 
once said : "Pooh ! fishing thing ! " At one of the sittings 
a man, stated to be an artist and my guide, was announced. 
The proof he gave me was remarkable. He said he had 
helped me to make three sketches twenty-five years ago. I 
had almost forgotten them, but have since found two, and 
remember the third perfectly. He said that one was the 
sketch of an old man with a red turban. I said : " Do you 
mean the old man sitting on the drum ? " " Yes," he said, 
" that is the one I mean, but he is not sitting on the drum. 
The drum was by his side, and why did you not finish that 
sketch ? " On examining the sketch afterwards I found that 
the man was sitting on a box, with the drum by his side, and 
that the background was left incompleted. I asked many 
questions as to occupations, duties, beliefs, mode of life. 
Here are some of the replies : 

" Religion with us is one great universal one of love and 
beauty." 

When will the day of judgment be ? — " Every day.' ! (70) 

" I was originally a materialist and could not believe what 
the Church taught. Some of Darwin's inferences are correct, 
others not so." 

A schoolfellow, afterwards a naval officer : " There is no 
reincarnation. When I rowed my boat over I did not leave 
my oars crossed." 

" There are seven spheres. The idea that the lower spheres 
are uncomfortable is all nonsense." 



322 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

" The realms are departments of the spheres. Supposing 
the sphere to be represented by a house, the rooms might 
indicate the realms." 

" When I passed over I had the choice of going to higher 
spheres or remaining among earth conditions. I chose the 
latter." 

" First arrival on the other side is not disagreeable. I was 
astonished and surprised at the interesting surroundings in 
which I found myself, but soon found that I was obliged to 
make my chief happiness in helping others. "- 

" We can sleep if we like." 

'' I was then able to see what passed, and I saw my own 
body. I came back in the evening and also on the day of 
the funeral, where I was an unseen guest. I was not there (i.e 
in the coffin), only my mortal body, which is no more than a 
cast-off garment." 

" We use our eyes as you do but somewhat differently. 
We are able to see through objects to some extent." 

A brother officer, who had been beheaded on active service, 
said ; " I woke up on the third day and saw my own body." 

That animals survive the change called death is abund- 
antly proved by these experiences, and I have had the proof 
in my own house (vide page 157). Here is another testi- 
mony by Charles William Buchanan Hamilton, Deputy 
Inspector-General, R.N. 

Writing from Yarborough Lodge, Southsea, under date 
13th June 1913 (Voices, page 266), he says : 

Next came my brother, Rev. William Hamilton, who died 
of consumption. He spoke in a hoarse, clear whisper, as one 
suffering from tuberculosis of the throat. He said he was 
very happy and told us that he had a small dog with him. My 
wife exclaimed : "Is that ' Bone ' ? " Hardly had she said 
so before she felt as if the dog were jumping on her dress. I 
said : "Is that ' Bone ' ? " and we heard three loud barks such as 
he used to give in life. I then said : " Kiss me, Bone," which 
I often said to him when he was alive, and felt a cold nose 
pressed to my forehead, and my wife experienced the same 
touch. Bone was a little Yorkshire terrier who died on 19th 
March last, and was beloved by my wife and myself. 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 323 

The following statement is interesting from the clear 
recognition afforded. It is given by Mr and Mrs I. Maybank. 

Mr Maybank [says Admiral Moore] served under my com- 
mand in H.M.S. Rambler. He now holds a responsible civil 
post. I sat with him at one public and one private sitting. 
His account is correct. 

Mr Maybank writes : 

Having suffered bereavement through the loss of our only- 
child, who passed away on February 24, 191 1, we sought 
consolation. My wife and I arrived at Wimbledon on 16th 
May 191 2. We sat in a semicircle, my wife sitting at one end 
of the arc. 

An uncle and great-uncle and also a great-aunt of my wife 
came. The conversation left no doubt that I was conversing 
with those who had departed this life many years ago. 

Our dear boy next came and spoke to us, and I want to em- 
phasise this point. Immediately he commenced to speak we 
recognised his voice. . . . Next Saturday we sat again in the 
same room. Our dear boy Harold came again and spoke to 
us. It flashed upon me suddenly to put a test question. So 
I said : " Harold, do you remember Cyril ? " He replied : 
"Of course I do. Didn't I tease him ? " I agreed and he 
went on : " And didn't he growl ? "- Then he caused a laugh 
by imitating the noise made by a cat when angry. 

When "Cyril" was mentioned not one of those present 
would suppose it referred to a cat, or could possibly have 
known that we had a cat of that name. 

On Monday, 20th May, we had a private sitting, and Admiral 
Moore, by request, sat with us. My grandmother first came 
and I plainly saw and recognised her. Harold, our son, then 
came, and was plainly visible to Mrs Maybank and myself, and 
I must emphasise this, we both distinctly saw and recognised him. 

On Tuesday, May 21, we had our last sitting. Harold 
spoke much stronger than before. Mrs Maybank asked him 
if he knew what she had tucked in the front of his shirt as he 
lay in his coffin. He replied without hesitation : "Of course 
I do, Mum. It was that piece of gold you gave me.' 1 Five 
years before his mother gave him a small nugget of gold. He 
kept it until he passed away, and as he lay in his coffin his 



324 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

mother took it from his purse and tucked it in the front of his 
shirt. Our boy came twice more and spoke, the conversations 
being very, very dear to us, and both my wife and I had ample 
proof that our dear boy still lives. 

Testimony of Mr J. C. Berry, M.P.S., chemist in business 
at 96 Craven Park Road, Harlesden, London. He came 
as an entire stranger to Professor Coates at Rothesay, 
asking for a sitting with Mrs Wriedt. 

He says, under date 16th August 1913 {The Voices, page 

39i) : 

In the evening my wife came again, saying : " John, John, 
I have come back again. I have no tube in my mouth." No 
one in that room knew anything about my wife, children or 
myself. None knew that my wife died of cancer or that she 
had a tube in her throat. 

Mr Coates adds : 

Mrs Wriedt now said she saw a dog. Presently we all heard 
a terrier yelp. The voice told Mr Berry that this was one of 
the dogs that had been put to death in the discharge of his 
duties. Mr Berry admitted that this was correct. No one 
present knew that Mr Berry was a chemist until the dog 
yelped and Mr Berry gave his explanation. 

Very similar testimony is given to the psychic power of 
Mr Evans Powell. A well-known newspaper proprietor, Mr 
H. W. Southey, of Merthyr Tydvil, writes me — 4th April 
1918 — an account of his experiences with this psychic. 

In this case the voices came without a trumpet. He says : 

What especially impressed me in the voices of my wife, my 
son, and my friend the colonel, was their truthful correspond- 
ence with the tones and accentuation of the personalities in 
their earthly life. The colonel spoke so closely to me that I 
could have taken my oath to the identity of his voice, and it 
seemed to me and my daughter that there had been no change 
at all in the case of my wife, and to both of us the voice was 
so familiar that you will understand me when I say that my 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 325 

daughter was dumb-struck, and I was almost overcome myself. 
I had no doubt whatever of her identity. 

Another very impressive phenomenon is the prompt 
response to mental requests often experienced at sittings 
for psychic phenomena M. M., a Kingston-on-Thames 
lady, gives an instance (The Voices, page 56) : 

One night, being tired, I stretched my hands above my 
head. Two hands, coming down as it were from the ceiling, 
took mine and pulled me upwards till I stood on tiptoe. I felt 
that I should have been lifted but became agitated. Mr King 
reached up and felt the hands grasping mine. My husband 
also felt them. I touched the forefinger of the right hand and 
found it roughened as my boy's often was by attending to his 
motor bicycle. I once mentally asked my boy if Mrs Ella 
Anker could not have the hands, and immediately she de- 
lightedly exclaimed that a little hand was caressing her. We 
then heard a child's voice talking to her in Norwegian for some 
minutes. I also felt a baby's hand pat me. I took hold of 
it and felt the tiny nails ; they were very soft as a baby's would 
be. There was no mortal child in the room. 

I have experienced the same impressive answer to mental 
requests. On May 10th, 1917, sitting with Mrs Harris, a 
small musical box began to float in the air round the room, 
playing as it went. I mentally requested that the box 
would come and rest upon my face. It approached and 
hovered over my head like a bird, playing all the time, and 
coming nearer and nearer until at last it settled firmly 
upon my face, where it remained playing for two or three 
seconds, and then soared away again. ( io 7) 

I bring this chapter to a close with the account of my 
own sittings with Mrs Wriedt. In 1912, the year of Mrs 
Wriedt's first visit, I had four sittings. At the first, on 
31st May, Mr Stead greeted me in a loud voice, clear and 
unmistakable, bidding me welcome to his house. Many 
other very evidential things came for the other sitters, 



326 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

including the etherialisation of a man who had shot himself, 
and who was identified by one of the sitters, but beyond a 
voice giving the name " William," I got nothing more on 
this occasion (cf. 290). 

On Monday, 3rd June, I had the most remarkable sitting 
of the series. I had written for W. Wortley Baggally, Esq., 
one of the Council of the S.P.R., to join me, and he did so 
on this evening, therefore I asked permission to introduce 
a friend, which was granted. In order to make things 
more evidential he was introduced under the name Wortley, 
one of his Christian names. There were about seven persons 
present in addition to myself, my wife and Mr W. Wortley 
Baggally, all strangers to us. Mr Wortley sat next to 
Mrs Wriedt in the place of honour. After we had examined 
the room the light was put out, the door locked, and we 
sat in darkness. The musical poly phone now played, most 
beautifully, Schubert's Ave Maria, and we then sang. 
Very soon water was sprinkled on us and a deep and solemn 
voice spoke, giving us a benediction. My wife now saw 
a form standing near where Mr " Wortley " was. Mrs 
Wriedt said that there was a man with a beard near him. 
Then Mrs Wriedt said : "I get two names for you, James 
and William. Did you know anyone with these names ? " 
Mr " Wortley " said he did. 

Mr Baggally informed us after the sitting that James 
and William were the two names especially connected with 
his family which had been used for generations. He 
was called William and his brother was named James. 

Now a George Wallace came for a Miss Wallace sitting 
next to me. She recognised her brother by his voice and 
what was told her. She wept softly for a long time after- 
wards. We now saw a luminous star and Mrs Wriedt 
said she saw a spirit who gave the name of Perrine. Mr 
" Wortley " said that he had known someone of that name. 
Other voices came to the other sitters, then a voice to 
my wife, giving the name " Frank Woodward." My wife 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 327 

was astonished at this and asked who he was. The voice 
replied that she was the daughter of Frank Burnett and that 
he knew her when she was at — — School. I had never 
heard his name before and did not know my wife had 
attended this school. 

[My wife after the sitting informed me that she knew 
Frank Woodward seventeen years before and had not seen 

him since. He was her schoolmaster at ■ School. She 

did not know that he was dead but on writing her mother 
on our return home she found that he had died more than 
a year before the date of this sitting.] Immediately after 
this there began a most remarkably loud and lively whistling. 
It went on for some time and then Mrs Wriedt said : " Did 
you know anyone who whistled like that, Mr ' Wortley ' ? " 
Mr Wortley at first temporised and said he would like 
something more evidential than the whistling, but every 
time he asked for speech, or something more, the whistling 
burst out louder than ever, and was evidently teasing 
him, and this became so manifest that the whole of the 
company present laughed heartily at the answering whistling. 
Then came a voice : " Wake up, Wortley." Mr " Wortley " 
replied that he was very much awake. The vigorous 
whistling now ceased, and suddenly a man's deep voice 
sang, most beautifully, Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep. 
Mrs Wriedt asked whether Mr " Wortley " knew anyone 
who used to sing that song. He replied : " Yes, a dear 
friend whom I knew." The deep voice here chimed in : 
" I should just think you did, old man." Then Auld Lang 
Syne was splendidly sung by the same deep voice, and Mr 
" Wortley " said it was very appropriate. 

Almost immediately afterwards a woman's voice sang 
exquisitely When Other Lips and Other Hearts. When the 
song was finished the same deep voice that had rendered 
Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep and Auld Lang Syne cried 
out : " Now do you know her ? " with great emphasis on 
the last word. 



328 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

This marvellous manifestation, which was the great 
feature of the evening, then ceased. Every word was 
distinctly heard by all present. 

[The full significance of this was not apparent until my 
wife and I received Mr W. Wortley Baggally's explanation 
after the sitting, then the wonder of it all became apparent. 
He informed us that his father was a remarkable whistler 
and used to whistle in an exactly similar way, also that the 
song, Rocked in the Cradle oj the Deep, was his father's 
favourite song and the one he was particularly known by. 
He also informed us that he recognised the identity of the 
lady, a very dear friend. He was deeply impressed, and 
told us that this was the first real personal evidence of sur- 
vival that he had encountered in his twenty years of in- 
vestigation. We are certain that Mr W. Wortley Baggally's 
identity was not known on this occasion to anyone present 
save ourselves, and we knew absolutely nothing of Mr 
Baggally's private or family affairs, or of the names and 
incidents connected with him which transpired at this 
sitting.] No sooner had this wonderful piece of evidence 
ceased than a voice came for my wife, giving the name of Mrs 
Wood. At this we were greatly surprised. She was an old 
parishioner of mine whom I had found dead in her chair by 
her fireside, on the morning of 25th September 1911. 

On the table by her side there was a pot of water and a 
candlestick. We asked her how she died. She replied : 
" I began to be very drowsy, very drowsy. I could not 
keep my eyes open. I then drank a glass of water and I 
remembered no more until I woke up in heaven." This 
was so pathetic that all present exclaimed at it. She now 
conversed with my wife on very evidential and private 
matters known only to ourselves. I then put a test question 
about the tombstone over her grave. It had been most 
negligently allowed to lie prostrate on the ground for 
several months until my strong representations had secured 
its restoration. Thinking this would be a test, I said : " Can 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 329 

you tell me something about your grave ? " She replied, 
to my disappointment : " Do you mean about it caving 
in ? " I had never heard of her grave " caving in." 
She immediately added : "I think it is better not to let 
them rest in Weston churchyard but to cremate them." 

We could not understand this at all, but it turned out 
to be a splendid test, one that blows the telepathic and 
subliminal theories of these communications to atoms, for 
the information conveyed was (1) unknown to me ; (2) con- 
trary to my strong preconception, on which at that moment 
I was concentrating, while the reference to cremation 
puzzled us completely. Five days after this sitting we 
returned home. Immediately on alighting upon the plat- 
form we were told that my patron, the squire of the parish, 
was dead, and that they were going to cremate him, and not 
bury the body in the church. We heard both facts then 
for the first time. Next day I saw my sexton and asked 
him whether Mrs Wood's grave had ever caved in. He at 
once replied : " Yes, sir ; didn't you know ? I spent all 
one afternoon setting it right." My patron died on 6th 
June, this message re cremation being thus received three 
days before his death, of which we did not hear until the 8th. 

After several other voices and a talk with the loud, 
cheery voice of John King, my father's name was given and 
the voice addressed me. He said : " Do you remember 
Dr Hoyle ? " I replied with another question. " How 
did he pass over ? " The answer was : " He was killed by a 
blow on the head." I thought this wrong at the time. 
The spirit then touched my wife on her chin, cheek and 
hand, saying : " How do you do, my daughter-in-law ? " 
While this voice was speaking to my wife, Mrs C. Stewart, 
of Cupar Angus, who was present, had the voice of her son 
whispering in her ear. She told us that she recognised his 
voice and also the correctness of what he told her. 

The reply of my father touching the death of Dr Hoyle 
was, I thought, erroneous. I had always understood that 



330 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

he was drowned. He was my father's assistant. One 
morning, some little time after leaving my father's employ, 
he fell ill, and in delirium got out of his bedroom window 
early in the morning and ran up the deserted street until 
he came to the river. Here he tried to cross a dam or weir 
but, slipping, was precipitated down a steep slope of about 
fifteen feet into a pool of water, where he was drowned, so 
I always understood. On returning home from this sitting 
I went on to Lancashire, and there visited my mother, to 
obtain the true particulars. I said : He was drowned, 
was he not ? " She replied : " No ; he had a great wound 
in his head, didn't you know ? He hit his head against 
an iron rod or spike as he fell down the slope of the dam." 

I was entirely ignorant of this, and had been all my life 
thinking that his death was due to drowning only. [Here 
again the subliminal theory is completely shattered.] This 
was a singularly evidential sitting, and most impressive. 

In 1913 I had three sittings. At the one on 16th June 
a voice came for my wife, saying : " It's Grannie." 

My wife suggested names. 

Voice. No. No. 

Wife. Who, then ? 

Voice. Grannie Burnett ! 

Wife. What ? Father's mother ! 

Voice. Yes. Yes. 

Wife. Have you a message for us ? 

Voice. Yes. Mary is here. 

Wife. Who is Mary ? (Here my wife suggested several 
Marys.) 

Voice (impatiently). No. No. No. 

Wife. Can you tell us your Christian name ? 

No reply, but a few seconds later Mrs Wriedt said : " She 
says it was Catharine." This was correct. 

During the evening my wife remembered that her grand- 
mother had adopted a girl named Mary and that she had 
died about three years previously under rather peculiar 



EVIDENCE OF THE DIRECT VOICE 331 

circumstances. On going home some weeks later my wife 
told this to her father, who was much impressed and 
informed her that the girl Mary had been buried in the 
same grave as Grannie Burnett. All this was unknown to 
me, and Mrs Wriedt could have no possible knowledge of it. 

During this sitting Mrs Wriedt said that she saw a little 
girl, with very light hair, elevated above the floor, and that 
she came for us. My wife could not see her. At the 
sitting of 18th June, one of the sitters (who was not present 
on 1 6th June and who was an entire stranger to us), suddenly 
turned to my wife and said : " There is a beautiful little 
girl with very fair hair standing close to you. Do you 
see her ? " My wife did not, nor did I. Returning home 
on 20th June we were in the long underground passage at 
King's Cross Station. Suddenly my wife cried out : " See 
the girl." The little fair-headed girl appeared to her walk- 
ing just behind the porter who was carrying our luggage, 
and after accompanying us about fifty yards vanished 
when at the top of the steps and about two yards into the 
sunshine. On Saturday, 21st June, I was reading the news- 
paper in the breakfast-room alone and with the door shut. 
Suddenly I caught a glimpse of someone close to me stoop- 
ing down behind my paper. It was so realistic that it 
made me start violently. I thought it was one of my 
children. I at once rose from my seat and looked under 
the table for the child. Finding no one there, I searched 
the small room, but save for myself there was no other 
mortal in it (305) . 

During this search the door was shut (it has no keyhole), 
the blinds and curtains were drawn, and I did not speak. 
I was just about to settle down again to the paper, under 
the impression that I must have been mistaken, when the 
door opened and my wife took a step forward into the room. 
Before I could utter a single word, she exclaimed : " Oh, 
Charles, see the little girl ! " She saw her distinctly 
standing near me, the vision lasting for several minutes. 



332 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

I now told my wife what I had seen and she questioned 
the little girl. The reply (heard clairaudiently) was that 
she had just allowed me to get a glimpse of her. On 
looking up my records I find that the same little girl has 
been seen by our servant on 26th March 1912 and, a few 
days after, by my wife, both in daylight ; also by my 
daughter Marjorie on 19th March 1913, again in broad day- 
light. My daughter took notice of the flaxen hair, remark- 
ing that it was almost white. No details of these appear- 
ances had previously been published. All who have seen 
her describe her as a beautiful little girl of about six years 
of age. It will thus be seen that the figure seen and 
described by Mrs Wriedt on 16th June has been observed 
by at least five other persons under circumstances precluding 
all possibility of hallucination or fraud. 

Sir William Barrett, F.R.S., late President of the Society 
for Psychical Research and Professor of Physics at the 
University of Dublin, speaking of his experience, says : 

I went to Mrs Wriedt 's sittings in a somewhat sceptical 
spirit, but I came to the conclusion that she is a genuine and 
remarkable psychic and has given abundant proof to others 
beside myself that the voices and the contents of the messages 
are wholly beyond the range of trickery or collusion (The 
Voices, page 126). 

As Admiral Moore remarks : " If the evidence for the 
voices given in these pages is not sufficient to establish 
their genuine character, human testimony is no good for 
anything whatsoever," and to this I add, "either ancient 
or modern testimony," and with this pronouncement I 
think all reasonable men who are not blinded by bigotry or 
prejudice will agree. 



XX 

THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 

And Jacob was left alone and there wrestled a man with him 
until the breaking of the day. — Gen. xxxii. 24. 

And the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote 
upon the plaister of the wall. — Dan. v. 5. 

And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, 
and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. 

And their eyes were opened, and they knew him ; and he vanished 
out of their sight.— Luke xxiv. 30-31. 

Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, 
and said, Peace be unto you. Then said he to Thomas, Reach 
hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy 
hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless; but 
believing. — -John xx. 26, 27. 

And as they went to tell his disciples behold Jesus met them in the 
way, saying, All hail ! And they came and held him by the feet, 
and worshipped him. — Matt, xxviii, 9. 

He said unto them, Have ye here any meat ? And they gave 
him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, 
and did eat before them.- — Luke xxiv. 41-43. 

The angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the 
prison : and he smote Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, 
Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. — -Acts 
xii. 7. 

WHAT is materialisation ? In the sense in which 
it is used in these pages the term indicates 
broadly" : 

1. The clothing of the tenuous material spirit or spiritual 
body with a covering of grosser matter so constituted as 
to exactly simulate the form and appearance of the mortal 
body of the said spirit when in the earth life. 

2. The production of simulacra or representations of 
other objects, such as garments and symbols, by the said 
spirits or spiritual beings. 

The reader will have gathered, as we have unfolded the 
story of things psychic, that there are different degrees of 
tenuity or solidity in the varying phases of spirit manifesta- 
tion. He is now about to be introduced to the crowning 

333 



334 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

wonder in a series of wonders — materialisation. The 
stages of manifestation of spiritual beings are as follows : — 

i. The spirit body, material in nature and having sub- \. 
stance, but of extreme tenuity and invisible to normal sight, 
but, when slightly overlaid or strengthened, seen by clair- 
voyant sight, and, when slightly increased in substance, j 
capable of being registered by the photographic plate. 
This is what may be termed the normal condition of the I 
spirit body, and represents that body in which life in the ; 
spirit world is lived and enjoyed. It is intangible to human j 
beings owing to its extreme tenuity, but is objective and 
material. 

2. The etherialisation. This is a further advance in com- I 
parative solidity or substance, and this slight advance along 
the road to complete materialisation renders the spirit body 
visible to normal human sight, so that it can be seen by 
several persons at the same time. The difference between 
this etherialised spirit body and the normal spirit body 
may be compared to the difference between water vapour 
or steam uncondensed and invisible, close to the kettle 
spout, and condensed and visible, white and cloud-like, 
some distance away. 

3. Partial materialisation. This includes : 

(a) Materialisation, so as to be solid and tangible, of a 

part of the spirit body, as, for instance, a hand. 
These materialisations of hands are often men- 
tioned in Scripture (Ezekiel viii. 3 ; Daniel v. 5). 

(b) Imperfect materialisations of the spirit body due 

to lack of power. 

4. Complete materialisations. These are perfect material- 
isations of the spirit body which comports itself exactly as a 
normal human being, and is able to walk, talk, and eat food. 
The scornful and incredulous among the orthodox, who 
laugh at the mere notion of such a thing, are referred to 
Luke xxiv. 30-43. These varying forms of manifestation 
of the spirit, or spiritual body, represent the different 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 335 

degrees of materiality assumed. Now no one can experi- 
ence this or any other form of psychic manifestation unless 
he is himself, either consciously or unconsciously, and to a 
greater or less degree, the possessor of that constitutional 
attunement, or nature, termed psychic, or is near, or in 
the presence of, such a person. One cannot have psychic 
manifestations or communications without the means of 
such communication or manifestation, just as in civil life 
one cannot phone or wire unless a telephone or telegraph 
is available. This presence of a psychic, a seer, a prophet, 
an apostle, was as necessary in Bible times as at the present 
day. The apostles were undoubtedly chosen largely for 
their psychic powers or gifts. Those who demand that they 
should be the subject of these manifestations independent 
of a psychic, or of the proper conditions, are about as 
logical as the savage chief who demanded the production 
of a photograph without the aid of plate, dark room, or 
camera (223). 

All forms of spirit manifestation are subject to definite 
laws. These are part of the laws of the universe and as 
real as those governing the motions of the planets or the 
sending of a wireless message. 

The natural laws of the spiritual world are only part of 
that great body of natural law which, until quite recently, 
we have been accustomed to think of as appertaining only 
to grosser material things. This has been entirely the 
result of the failure to grasp the idea that the spiritual 
world was part of the material universe. Psychic pheno- 
mena then are under the domain of law. These laws and 
conditions are, as yet, only imperfectly understood by us, 
but careful and patient investigation is adding to our 
knowledge day by day. Careful observation and experi- 
ment has enabled us to state as a fact that, in the presence 
of certain persons and under test conditions, other person- 
alities previously invisible and intangible are able to 
manifest to us and to comport themselves as human beings, 



336 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

afterwards vanishing away, and that some of these person- 
alities are recognisable as those who have been long " dead," 
and have previously lived on this earth. 

The whole account of the return of the Christ after his 
crucifixion and death stands as a proof of this,* and I shall 
now support that great and historic account with some 
others, out of very many obtained in our own times. 

I come first to the experiences and careful observations 
and experiments of Sir William Crookes, one of the leading 
physicists of the day, and of this or any other country, and 
author of several discoveries of the first importance. At 
the present moment he is retained by the British Govern- 
ment as one of its chief advisers in physics. 

To him in 1873 came the wonderful young psychic 
Florence Cook, when she was a mere slip of a girl of about 
sixteen, in order that he might investigate the materialisa- 
tions which were being frequently seen in her presence. 
She placed herself entirely at his disposal, staying at times 
at his house, under the surveillance of Lady Crookes, and 
the experiments were carried out in his laboratory in the 
presence of Sir William, the members of his family, and of 
several scientific friends, with all the thoroughness and 
precautions that might be expected from a trained physicist 
of his standing. The results are set forth in his communica- 
tions to the psychic journals of the time and also were 
published in book form. 

Before describing what took place it will be necessary to 

* In vain do objectors quote Christ's statement : "A spirit hath 
not flesh and bones as ye see me have " (Luke xxiv. 39). Only those 
conversant with the phenomena of materialisation can understand 
these words. The Greek word, " Pneuma," in this passage, means 
originally " wind," " air in motion," " breath," and then " dis- 
carnate spirit." It is quite true that a " discarnate spirit " has 
not grossly material flesh and bones, as Christ said ; but a materialised 
spirit has, and Christ at that moment was fully materialised. He 
thus emphasises the distinction between the two conditions of (1) the 
discarnate spiritual body (1 Cor. xv. 44), (2) the materialised spiritual 
body, in which he was then manifesting. 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 337 

explain that, for some time previous, a form giving the 
name of Katie King and possessing all the attributes of a 
living human being, had manifested through Florence 
Cook, as testified to by many witnesses. Sir William 
divided his laboratory into two parts by a curtain, one 
part serving as the cabinet for the manifestation, and there, 
under test conditions, with the absolute certainty that no 
other mortal personality save Florence Cook was in the 
cabinet, made the following, among many other similar 
observations. He says : 

Katie then said that she thought she could show herself 
at the same time as Miss Cook. ... I entered the room care- 
fully. . . . By the light of my lamp I saw the young girl 
(Florence Cook) clad in black velvet, as she was at the beginning 
of the sitting, and having all the appearance of being com- 
pletely insensible. She did not stir when I held the lamp close 
to her face, but continued to breathe peacefully. Raising the 
lamp I looked around, and saw Katie standing close behind 
Miss Cook. She was robed in flowing white drapery. Holding 
one of Miss Cook's hands in mine and still kneeling, I passed 
the lamp up and down so as to illuminate Katie's whole figure, 
and satisfy myself that I was looking at the veritable Katie. 
Three separate times did I examine Miss Cook crouching before 
me to be sure that the hand I held was that of a living woman, 
and three times did I turn the lamp to Katie and examine her 
with steadfast scrutiny until I had no doubt of her objective 
reality. 

Of another occasion he writes : (Cf. John xx. 19) 

Katie never appeared to greater perfection. For two hours 
she talked and walked about the room conversing familiarly 
with those present. On several occasions she "took my arm, 
and the impression given was that it was a living woman. 

Over forty photographs were taken with five different 
cameras from whole-plate downwards, and with a stereo- 
scopic camera I have seen one of the photos showing Sir 
William and Katie King standing side by side, and also 



338 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

several large photos of Katie King taken on another occasion 
by Mr William Harrison, in the presence of Dr Gully, father 
of the late Speaker of the House of Commons. 

As I have previously remarked, Florence Cook at this 
time was a mere girl. The personality known as Katie 
King was much taller and bigger, and apparently about 
twenty-four years of age. The spirit figure and Florence 
Cook were photographed side by side showing the difference 
of height and appearance. 

Sir William goes on to say in his account : 

I desire to make known a few differences which I have 
observed between Miss Cook and Katie. Katie's height is 
variable in my house. I have seen her more than six inches 
taller than Miss Cook. Yesterday evening, with her feet bare 
and flat on the ground, she was four and a half inches taller 
than Miss Cook. Last night Katie had her neck uncovered. 
The skin was perfectly smooth to the touch and sight, while 
Miss Cook has a scar on the neck which is distinctly visible 
and is rough to the touch. Katie's ears are not pierced, while 
those of Miss Cook ordinarily carry earrings. The tint of 
Katie's skin is almost white, that of Miss Cook rather brownish. 
I have recently had such good views of Katie when she was 
illuminated by the electric light that I am able to add several 
other differences. I have absolute certainty that Miss Cook 
and Katie are two distinct beings. Several little marks found 
on Miss Cook's face are not found on that of Katie. The hair 
of Miss Cook is brown, so dark as to be almost black, while 
that of Katie, which is before my eyes as I write and which 
she allowed me to cut from the midst of her luxuriant tresses 
after having traced it down to the scalp with my own 
fingers and making sure that it grew there, is a rich golden 
auburn. 

Katie's pulse beat regularly at 75. Miss Cook's reached 90. 
On applying my ear to Katie's chest, I could hear a heart 
beating inside, and the pulsations were more regular than those 
of Miss Cook. 

Katie and Florence Cook were often seen together by 
many witnesses. Sir William, on this point, says : 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 339 

Frequently I have raised the curtain, and then it has not 
been rare for seven or eight persons, who were in the laboratory, 
to see Katie and Miss Cook at the same time under the full 
glare of the electric light. 

As Sir William made these tests in his own house, to which 
Miss Cook was not allowed to bring a companion, it will 
be perceived that her employment of a confederate was 
utterly out of the question, while the sight of the two 
personalities at the same time, one clad in black velvet and 
the other in white robes, together with their differences 
in height, colour of hair, etc., etc., completely disposes of 
the foolish statements of ignorant men, that Katie was 
impersonated by Miss Cook. As well might one say that 
Christ, when he manifested in the upper room, was im- 
personated by St John. 

This wonderful materialisation of Katie King continued 
at intervals for several years, and was observed by many 
gentlemen of position and standing, among whom were 
Mr William Harrison, editor, Mr Benjamin Coleman, Mr 
Luxmore, Dr Sexton, Dr Gully, Prince Sayn Wittgenstein, 
Florence Marryat, daughter of Captain Marryat, and many 
others. 

The testimony of the latter, Florence Marryat, supports 
that of Sir William in a remarkable degree. This lady, 
a woman of strong personality, a distinguished writer, and 
a person of great acumen and powers of observation, has 
given some of the most remarkable testimony to human 
survival extant. 

The following is taken from her notable work, There is 
No Death* page 141 : — 

I have seen Florrie Cook's dark curls nailed to the floor in 
view of the sitters, whilst Katie walked about, and moreover, 



* There is No Death, by Florence Marryat. Rider & Son, Pater- 
noster Row. 



340 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

I have seen both Katie and Florrie together on several occa- 
sions, so I have no doubt that they are two separate creatures. 
Sometimes Katie resembled Florence Cook in features ; at 
others she was totally different. One evening Katie walked 
out and perched herself on my knee. I could feel that she was 
much plumper and heavier than Miss Cook, but on this occasion 
she resembled her in features, and I told her so. Katie did not 
seem to consider this a compliment, and said : "I know I am. 
I can't help it, but I was much prettier than that in earth life. 
You shall see, some day. You shall see." After she had re- 
tired that evening she put her head out at the curtain and said : 
"I want to see Mrs Ross-Church [Florence Marryat]." I 
rose and went to her, and she pulled me inside the curtain, 
which I found was so thin that the gas from the other room 
made everything inside quite visible. Katie pulled my dress 
impatiently and said : " Sit down on the ground," which I did. 
She then sat in my lap. Florence Cook meanwhile was lying 
on the floor in a deep trance. Katie seemed very anxious I 
should ascertain that it was Florrie. 

" Touch her," she said : " take her hand, pull her curls. Do 
you see that it is Florrie lying there ? " When I assured her 
that I was quite satisfied there was no doubt of it, the spirit 
said : " Then look round this way and see what I was like in 
earth life." I turned to the form in my arms, and what was 
my amazement to see a woman, fair as the day, with large grey 
or blue eyes, a white skin and a profusion of golden red hair. 
Katie enjoyed my surprise, and then asked : " Am I not 
prettier than Florrie now ? " She then gave me a lock of her 
own hair and a lock of Florence Cook's. Florrie's is almost 
black, soft and silky ; Katie's a coarse golden red. 

On another very warm evening I felt perspiration on her 
arm and I asked her if, for the time being, she had the veins, 
nerves and secretions of a human being, and had a heart and 
lungs. Her answer was : "I have everything that Florrie 
has." On that occasion she said: "You can see I am a 
woman," which indeed she was, and a most beautifully made 
woman too, and I examined her well whilst Miss Cook lay beside 
us on the floor. Instead of dismissing me this time Katie told 
me to sit down by Miss Cook with a box of matches, and said 
I was to strike a light as soon as she gave three knocks, as Miss 
Cook would need my assistance. As she spoke thus she rapped 
three times on the floor. I struck the match almost simultane- 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 341 

ously with the signal, but as it flared up Katie was gone like a 
flash of lightning, and Miss Cook, as Katie had predicted, 
awoke with a burst of frightened tears and had to be soothed 
into tranquillity again. 

But the most remarkable evidence for the identity of a 
returning spirit on record is given by Florence Marryat 
on pages 73-86 of her book, There is No Death, from which 
I make the following extracts : — 

The same year that John Powles died, i860, I passed through 
the greatest trouble of my life. It is quite unnecessary to 
my narrative to relate what that trouble was, nor how it 
affected me, but I suffered terribly both in mind and body, 
and it was chiefly for this reason that the medical men advised 
my return to England, which I reached on the 14th of December, 
and on the 30th of the same month a daughter was born to 
me, who survived her birth for only ten days. The child was 
born with a most peculiar blemish, which it is necessary for 
the purpose of my argument to describe. On the left side of 
the upper lip was a mark as though a semicircular piece of 
flesh had been cut out by a bullet-mould, which exposed part 
of the gum. The swallow also had been submerged in the 
gullet, so that she had for the short period of her earthly exist- 
ence to be fed by artificial means, and the jaw itself had been 
so twisted that could she have lived to cut her teeth, the 
double ones would have been in front. This blemish was 
considered to be of so remarkable a type that Dr Frederick 
Butler of Winchester, who attended me, invited several other 
medical men, from Southampton and other places, to examine 
the infant with him, and they all agreed that a similar case 
had never come under their notice before. This is a very im- 
portant factor in my narrative. I was closely catechised as 
to whether I had suffered any physical or mental shock 
that should account for the injury to my child, and it was 
decided that the trouble I had experienced was sufficient to 
produce it. The case, under feigned names, was fully reported 
in The Lancet as something quite out of the common way. 
My little child, who was baptized by the name of " Florence,'' 
lingered until the 10th of January 1861, and then passed 
quietly away, and when my first natural disappointment was 



342 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

over I ceased to think of her except as of something which 
" might have been," but never would be again. In this world 
of misery, the loss of an infant is soon swallowed up in more 
active trouble. Still I never quite forgot my poor babj^, per- 
haps because at that time she was happily the " one dead 
lamb " of my little flock. In recounting the events of my 
first sitting with Mrs Holmes I have mentioned how a young 
girl much muffled up about the mouth and chin appeared, and 
intimated that she came for me, although I could not recognise 
her. I was so ignorant of the life beyond the grave at that 
period that it never struck me that the baby who had left me 
at ten days old had been growing since our separation, until 
she had reached the age of ten years. I could not interpret 
Longfellow (whom I consider one of the sublimest spiritualists 
of the age) as I can now. 

Day after day we think what she is doing, 

In those bright realms of air : 
Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, 

Behold her grown more fair. 

Not as a child shall we again behold her : 

For when, with rapture wild, 
In our embraces we again enfold her, 

She will not be a child ; 
But a fair maiden in her father's mansion, 

Clothed with celestial grace. 
And beautiful with all the soul's expansion, 

Shall we behold her face ! 



The first sitting made such an impression on my mind that 
two nights afterwards I again presented myself (this time alone ) 
at Mrs Holmes' rooms to attend another. The first spirit face 
to appear was that of the same little girl I had seen before. 
Mrs Holmes was positive the spirit came for me. She told me 
she had been trying to communicate with her since the previous 
sitting. " I know she is nearly connected with you," she said 
"Have you never lost a relation of her age ?" "Never! " 
I replied ; and at that declaration the little spirit moved away 
sorrowfully as before. 

A few weeks after I received an invitation from Mr Henry 
Dunphy (the gentleman who had introduced me to Mrs Holmes ) 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 343 

to attend a private sitting, given at his own house in Upper 
Gloucester Place, by the well-known psychic, Florence Cook. 
The double drawing-rooms were divided by velvet curtains, 
behind which Miss Cook was seated in an arm-chair, the curtains 
being pinned together half-way up, leaving a large aperture 
in the shape of a V. Being a complete stranger to Miss Cook, 
I was surprised to hear a voice direct that / should stand by 
the curtains and hold the lower parts together whilst the forms 
appeared above, and necessarily from my position I could hear 
every word that passed between Miss Cook and the voice. 
The first face that showed itself was that of a. man unknown 
to me ; then ensued a kind of frightened colloquy between the 
psychic and her control. " Take it away. Go away ! I 
don't like you. Don't touch me — you frighten me ! Go 
away ! " I heard Miss Cook exclaim, and then the voice 
interposed itself : " Don't be silly, Florrie. Don't be unkind. 
It won't hurt you," etc., and immediately afterwards the 
same little girl I had seen at Mrs Holmes' rose to view at the 
aperture of the curtains, muffled up as before, but smiling with 
her eyes at me. I directed the attention of the company to 
her, calling her again my " little nun." I was surprised, how- 
ever, at the evident distaste Miss Cook had displayed towards 
the spirit, and when the sitting was concluded and she had 
regained her normal condition, I asked her if she could recall 
the faces she saw under trance. " Sometimes," she replied. 
I told her of the "little nun," and demanded the reason of 
her apparent dread of her. " I can hardly tell you," said Miss 
Cook ; "I don't know anything about her. She is quite a 
stranger to me, but her face is not fully developed, I think. 
There is something wrong about her mouth. She frightens me." 

This remark, though made with the utmost carelessness, 
set me thinking, and after I had returned home I wrote to 
Miss Cook, asking her to inquire who the little spirit was. 

She replied as follows : — 

Dear Mrs Ross-Church, — I have asked " Katie King," 
but she cannot tell me anything further about the spirit that 
came through me the other evening than that she is a young 
girl closely connected with yourself. 

I was not, however, yet convinced of the spirit's identity, 
although " John Powles " constantly assured me that it was^ 



344 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

my child. I tried hard to communicate with her at home, 
but without success. I find in the memoranda I kept of our 
private sittings at that period several messages from " Powles " 
referring to "Florence." In one he says: "Your child's 
want of power to communicate with you is not because she is 
too pure but because she is too weak. She will speak to you 
some day. She is not in heaven. ' ' This last assertion, knowing 
so little as I did of a future state, both puzzled and grieved me. 
I could not believe that an innocent infant was not in the 
Beatific Presence — yet I could not understand what motive 
my friend could have in leading me astray. I had yet to learn 
that a spirit may have a training to undergo, even though it 
has never committed a mortal sin. 

She goes on to say : 

During the next twelve months I attended numerous sittings 
with various psychics, and my spirit child (as she called herself) 
never failed to manifest. Through some she touched me with 
an infant's hand that I might recognise it as hers, or laid her 
mouth against mine that I might feel the deformity upon her lips ; 
through others, spoke, or showed her face. Once at a sitting 
with Mr Charles Williams, after my dress and that of my neigh- 
bour, Lady Archibald Campbell, had been pulled several 
times to attract our attention, the darkness opened before 
us, and there stood my child smiling like a happy dream, 
her fair hair waving about her temples and her blue eyes 
fixed on me. Lady Archibald Campbell saw her as plainly 
as I did. 

But the great climax that was to prove beyond all question the 
personal identity of the spirit who communicated with me, with 
the body I had brought into the world, was yet to come. Mr 
William Harrison (who had never received a personal proof of 
the return of his own friends, or relations) wrote me word that 
he had received a message from his lately deceased friend Mrs 

S , to the effect that if he would sit with the medium, 

Florence Cook, and one or two harmonious companions, she 
would do her best to appear to him in her earthly likeness and 
afford him the test he had so long sought after. Mr Harrison 
asked me, therefore, if I would join him and Miss Kidlingbury 
in holding a sitting with Miss Cook, to which I agreed, and we 
met for that purpose. It was a very small room, about 8 feet 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 345 

by 16 feet, was uncarpeted and contained no furniture, so we 
carried in three cane-bottomed chairs for our accommodation. 
Across one corner of the room, about four feet from the door, we 
nailed an old black shawl, and placed a cushion behind it for 
Miss Cook to lean her head against. Miss Florence Cook, who 
is a brunette, of a small, slight figure, with dark eyes and hair 
which she wore in a profusion of curls, was dressed in a high 
grey merino, ornamented with crimson ribbons. She informed 
me previous to sitting that she had become restless during her 
trances lately, and in the habit of walking out amongst the 
circle, and she asked me to scold her well should such a thing 
occur, and order her to go back into the cabinet, and I pro- 
mised her I would do so. After Florence Cook had sat down 
on the floor, behind the black shawl (which left her grey merino 
skirt exposed), and laid her head against the cushion, we 
lowered the gas a little, and took our seats on the three cane 
chairs. The psychic appeared very uneasy at first. In a few 
minutes, however, there was a tremulous movement of the 
black shawl, and a large white hand was several times thrust 

into view and withdrawn again. I had never seen Mrs S 

(for whom we were expressly sitting) in this life, and could 
not, therefore, recognise the hand ; but we all remarked how 
large and white it was. In another minute the shawl was 
lifted up, and a female figure crawled on its hands and knees 
from behind it, and then stood up and regarded us. It was 
impossible, in the dim light and at the distance she stood 
from us, to identify the features, so Mr Harrison asked If she 

were Mrs S . The figure shook its head. I had lost a 

sister a few months previously, and the thought flashed across 
me that it might be her. "Is it you, Emily ? " I asked ; 
but the head was still shaken to express a negative, and a 
similar question on the part of Miss Kidlingbury, with respect 
to a friend of her own, met with the same response. " Who 
can it be ? " I remarked curiously to Mr Harrison. 

" Mother ! don't you know me ? " sounded in " Florence's " 
whispering voice. I started up to approach her, exclaiming, 
" O ! my darling child ! I never thought I should meet 
you here ! " But she said, " Go back to your chair, and I 
will come to you ! " I reseated myself, and " Florence " 
crossed the room and sat down on my lap. She was more un- 
clothed on that occasion than any materialised spirit I have 
ever seen. She wore nothing on her head, only her hair, of 



346 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

which she appears to have an immense quantity, fell down her 
back and covered her shoulders. Her arms were bare and 
her feet and part of her legs, and the dress she wore had no 
shape or style, but seemed like so many yards of soft thick 
muslin, wound round her body from the bosom to below the 
knees. She was heavy and had well-covered limbs. This 
sitting took place at a period when " Florence '■■ must have 
been about seventeen years old (53, 337). 

" Florence, my darling," I said, " is this really you ? " 
" Turn up the gas," she answered, " and look at my mouth. " 
Mr Harrison did as she desired, and we all saw distinctly thai 
peculiar defect on the lip with which she was born — a defect, 
be it remembered, which some of the most experienced members 
of the profession had affirmed to be " so rare as never to have 
fallen under their notice before." She also opened her mouth 
that we might see she had no gullet. I promised at the com- 
mencement of my book to confine myself to facts, and leave the 
deduction to be drawn from them to my readers, so I will not 
interrupt my narrative to make any remarks upon this incon- 
trovertible proof of identity. I know it struck me dumb, and 
melted me into tears. At this juncture Miss Cook, who had 
been moaning and moving about a good deal behind the black 
shawl, suddenly exclaimed, "I can't stand this any longer," 
and walked out into the room. There she stood in her grey 
dress and crimson ribbons whilst " Florence " sat on my lap 
in white drapery. But only for a moment, for directly the 
psychic was fully in view, the spirit sprung up and darted behind 
the curtain. Recalling Miss Cook's injunctions to me, I scolded 
her heartily for leaving her seat, until she crept back, whimper- 
ing, to her former position. The shawl had scarcely closed 
behind her before "Florence" reappeared and clung to me, 
saying, " Don't let her do that again. She frightens me so.'' 
She was actually trembling all over. "Why, Florence," I 
replied, " do you mean to tell me you are frightened of Miss 
Cook ? In this world it is we poor mortals who are frightened 
of the spirits." " I am afraid she will send me away, mother,'* 
she whispered. However, Miss Cook did not disturb us again, 
and " Florence " stayed with us for some time longer. She 
clasped her arms round my neck, and laid her head upon my 
bosom, and kissed me dozens of times. She took my hand and 
spread it out, and said she felt sure I should recognise her hand 
when she thrust it outside the curtain, because it was so much 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 347 

like my own. I was suffering much trouble at that time, and 
" Florence " told me the reason God had permitted her to 
show herself to me in her earthly deformity was so that I 
might be sure that she was herself. " Sometimes you doubt, 
mother," she said, " and think your eyes and ears have misled 
you ; but after this you must never doubt again. Don't 
fancy I am like this in the spirit land. The blemish left me 
long ago. But I put it on to-night to make you certain. 
Don't fret, dear mother. Remember / am always near you. 
No one can take me away. Your earthly children may grow 
up and go out into the world and leave you, but you will always 
have your spirit child close to you." I did not, and cannot, 
calculate for how long " Florence " remained visible on that 
occasion. Mr Harrison told me afterwards that she had re- 
mained for nearly twenty minutes. But her undoubted 
presence was such a stupendous fact to me that I could only 
think that she was there — that I actually held in my arms the 
tiny infant I had laid with my own hands in her coffin — that 
she was no more dead than I was myself, but had grown to be 
a woman. So I sat, with my arms tight round her, and my 
heart beating against hers, until the power decreased, and 
" Florence " was compelled to give me a last kiss and leave 
me stupefied and bewildered. I have seen and heard 
" Florence " on numerous occasions since the one I have 
narrated, but not with the mark upon her mouth, which she 
assures me will never trouble either of us again. I could 
fill pages with accounts of her pretty, caressing ways and 
her affectionate and sometimes solemn messages ; but I 
have told as much of her story as will interest the general 
reader. It has been wonderful to me to mark how her ways 
and mode of communication have changed with the passing 
years. It was a simple child who did not know how to express 
itself that appeared to me in 1873. It is a woman full of counsel 
and tender warning that comes to me in 1890. But yet she 
is only nineteen. When she reached that age, " Florence " 
told me she should never grow any older in years or appear- 
ance, and that she had reached the climax of womanly per- 
fection in the spirit world. Only to-night — the night before 
Christmas Day — as I write her story, she comes to me and 
says, " Mother ! you must not give way to sad thoughts. The 
Past is past. Let it be buried in the blessings that remain to 
you."- 



348 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

After these experiences in England but before the publica- 
tion of her book, There is No Death, Florence Marryat 
visited America in October, 1884. During the course of 
this visit she sat with several psychics, taking great care 
not to allow her identity to be known until she had obtained 
the evidence she required. Of the first sitting with Mr 
M. A. Williams, she writes (page 211) : 

The conductor of the sitting spoke to me. " I am not aware 
of your name," he said. I thought, " No, my friend, and 
you won't be aware of it just yet either ! " The conductor 
addressed me again. " Here is a spirit who says she has come 
for a lady named Florence who has just crossed the sea. Do 
you answer to the description ? " I was about to say, " Yes," 
when the curtains parted and my daughter Florence ran across 
the room and fell into my arms. "Mother," she exclaimed, 
" I said I would come and look after you, didn't I ? " 

I looked at her. She was exactly the same as when she 
came to me in England, the same luxuriant brown hair, and 
features, and figure as I had seen through the different psychics, 
Florence Cook, Arthur Coleman, Charles Williams and William 
Eglington stood before me in New York, thousands of miles 
across the sea. Florence appeared as delighted as I was, and 
kept kissing me and talking of what had happened. Presently 
she said, " There is another friend of yours here, mother. I'll 
go and fetch him." She was going back when the conductor 
of the sitting stopped her, saying, " You must not return 
this way." She immediately made a kind of curtsy and 
went down through the carpet. A moment afterwards she 
popped her head out again from the cabinet, saying, " Here's 
your friend." 

Shortly after this Florence manifested again through 
the Misses Berry. On this occasion Florence Marryat 
gave the name Mrs Richardson to conceal her identity. 

During the sitting the conductor, Mr Abrow, remarked, 
" There is a young girl in the cabinet who says that if her 
mother's name is Mrs Richardson she must have married, for 
the third time, since she saw her last." At this remark I 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 349 

laughed, and Mr Abrow said, " Does the cap fit ? " I had to 
acknowledge that I had given a false name to avoid recognition. 
So I recognised Florence at once in the trick she had played 
me, and had risen to approach the cabinet when she came 
bounding out and ran into my arms. I don't think I had ever 
seen her look so charming and girlish before. She looked the 
embodiment of sunshine. She was dressed in a low frock, 
which seemed manufactured of lace and muslin ; her hair fell 
loose down her back to her knees, and her hands were full of 
damask-roses.* This was in December, when roses were selling 
at a dollar a piece in Boston ; and she held perhaps twenty. 
Their scent was delicious, and she kept thrusting them under 
my nose, saying, " Smell my roses, mother. Don't you wish 
you had my garden ? " 

Her appearance created such a sensation among the sitters 
that I felt compelled to give them an explanation, and when I 
told them how I lost her as a tiny infant of ten days old, how 
she had returned to me through several psychics in England, 
and given such proof of her identity, and how I, a stranger in 
their country, had already seen her through Mrs Williams, Mrs 
Hatch and Mrs Berry, they said it was the most wonderful 
case they had ever heard of. And when one considers how 
perfect the chain is from the time when Florence came back 
to me as a little child, almost too weak to speak, till she could 
bound into my arms like a mortal and talk as distinctly as I did 
myself, I think my readers will acknowledge that hers is no 
common story. 

It will be noted that Florence Marryat here records 
the vanishing of the figure through the floor. This has 
often been noted by other observers, as also the formation 
of the figures from a mere spot of light upon the floor. 

In dematerialisation the drapery is generally the last 
to disappear. On this point Florence Marryat says, in 
another work of hers : 

When the full form dematerialises in sight and goes down 
through the floor, the drapery invariably is left behind for a 

* The fondness of spiritual beings for flowers has often been 
noticed. Flowers are peculiarly appropriate as offerings in spiritual 
things. 



350 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

few seconds till it follows suit. I have seen it done over and 
over again. 

It may not be out of place here to give a brief explanation 
of the manner in which materialisation is effected. Exactly 
how it is done we do not know in our present state of 
knowledge, but the materialised personalities say that the 
grosser matter in which they temporarily clothe themselves 
is drawn for the greater part from the body of the psychic, 
in a lesser degree from the sitters, and partly from the 
atmosphere. This last statement, which only a few years 
ago seemed incredible, is now more easily understandable, 
since the establishment within the last two years, as a 
commercial undertaking, of a process by which scores of 
thousands of tons of nitric acid are now manufactured 
from the atmosphere. That the body of the psychic is largely 
drawn upon has often been proved. Sir W. Crookes placed 
the psychic on a scale, when it was seen that as soon as 
" Katie " made her appearance, Miss Cook lost nearly 
half her weight ! This weighing experiment has often been 
repeated by other observers, one of the latest being Dr 
Crawford, Lecturer in Engineering at the Belfast University, 
who, under test conditions, by careful weighing experiments,* 
found that Miss Kathleen Golligher — the remarkable young 
psychic— lost some fifty pounds in weight during the 
levitation of objects in her presence, the said levitation 
being a far less demand upon her psychic powers than 
materialisation. 

Everything taken from the psychic has to be returned 
by the manifesting personalities. It will therefore be 
perceived how delicate the experiment is, and how dangerous 
to the psychic is any attempt to seize or otherwise maltreat 
the materialised form. 

Should the figure be roughly seized it puts the psychic 

* The Reality of Psychic Phenomena, by W. J. Crawford, D.Sc. 
Watkins. 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 351 

in the utmost peril. All that has been taken from the 
psychic instantly rushes back to his, or her, body under 
hasty and improper conditions, the drapery disappearing 
last and giving the impression that the psychic is masquer- 
ading as a dressed-up figure. Ignorant spectators who have 
thus rushed in have published to the world that they have 
exposed " the fraud of materialisation." What they have 
exposed has been their own ignorance and lack of scientific 
method, not to speak of their action in harsher terms. 
These materialised personalities may be freely touched and 
handled when request is made and permission granted. 
On this head note the case of the Christ, who first refuses 
permission to touch his materialised form, " Touch me 
not " (John xx. 17) and then afterwards gives express 
permission : " Reach hither thy hand and thrust it into 
my side " (John xx. 27). In the first instance the material- 
isation was very probably being made through Mary 
Magdalene herself and her wild embrace (Mrj jjlov in the 
Greek signifies " Do not lay hold of me ") would have 
either injured her own self, or, through lack of power, 
instantly brought his manifestation to an end. It is a 
well-known fact that some psychics are not entranced 
during materialisation, but remain normal and see the 
materialised forms. 

I have given this American experience of Miss Marryat 
as confirming that gained by her in England, and also 
because it is in turn fully confirmed by the experiences of 
two of my own friends, the late Vice- Admiral Usborne Moore 
and Miss Katharine Bates, in the same country. 

The strongly electrical condition of the atmosphere over 
the greater part of the United States is a point greatly in 
favour of these manifestations in that country. Almost 
anywhere in the middle states, for two months in the year, 
when the air is clear and dry, and the thermometer very 
low, it is possible by sliding along the carpet to light a 
gas jet by an electrical spark from one's finger, generated 



352 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

by the friction of the feet upon the carpet. This electrical 
condition also prevails in the Sinaitic desert in which the 
Children of Israel witnessed the psychic wonders during 
their wanderings in the wilderness, the only difference 
being that in Sinai the dryness is associated with extreme 
heat, in the United States with extreme cold, but in each 
case the electrical conditions are extremely favourable to 
psychic phenomena and this was undoubtedly a powerful 
factor in the manifestations to the Israelites. A year or 
two ago {Light, 2nd January 1917) I drew attention to 
this and afterwards suggested the building of a laboratory 
or room with a suitable electrical installation and means 
of drying the atmosphere, in order that these conditions 
might be imitated in this country, in the following 
article, published in Light for 8th September 1917 : — 



Room sixteen feet square, preferably an interior room, on 
the second floor, with no outer walls, if possible, so as to be 
free from dampness. The walls, ceiling and floor to be covered 
with some good insulating material. A false floor to be fitted 
supported on glass insulators, accessible so as to be kept free 
from dust and not touching the sides of the room, so that all 
the persons in the room will be electrically insulated, as on an 
insulating stool. The electrical plant to consist of a powerful 
static electrical machine, having plates three feet in diameter, 
the positive or negative conductors being capable of being 
connected with the insulated floor, which had better be free 
from carpet, the alternate conductor being connected with the 
earth through the water mains, or in some other effective way. 
This static machine to be worked, as required, by a small motor 
run from the electric light supply. A powerful high-frequency 
apparatus might also be supplied for alternative use. 

The electrical conditions produced by the static machine 
would have a powerfully bracing effect, both on the sitters and 
the psychic, and would tend to lessen the fatigue sometimes 
consequent on a sitting under ordinary conditions. 

The room to be warmed by hot-water pipes capable of re- 
gulation by a valve, and to be kept free from dust and closed 
during the time it is not in use, and to have suitable trays of 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 353 

calcium chloride placed on shelves to keep the air absolutely 
dry. During the progress of a sitting the door to be locked 
and ventilation accomplished by means of a small exhaust fan 
near the ceiling drawing out a regulated amount of air, the 
intake being close to the floor, on the opposite side of the 
room, the incoming air passing over trays or through 
tubes containing calcium chloride, so as to enter the room 
absolutely dry. 

Trays of calcium chloride to be in the room during the 
sitting to absorb any moisture given off by the breath of the 
sitters. The calcium chloride might be mingled with asbestos 
fibre, as used by the Platinotype Company, so as to be easily 
handled, and easily dried in the trays over a gas ring in a 
draught cupboard, or before an open firegrate, or the whole of 
the trays could be baked dry in an ordinary oven. 

In this way an absolutely dry electrical atmosphere could 
be obtained which should be quite equal to, or even surpass, 
that obtained in the United States or the Sinaitic desert, and 
the process of materialisation be as easily accomplished here 
as in either of the localities named. This design which I 
bring forward embodies the first attempt to provide con- 
ditions identical with those which obtain in more favoured 
lands. 

These electrical conditions explain why psychic pheno- 
mena in the United States are usually more abundant 
and more easily obtained than in the damp atmosphere 
of this country. 

Another point to be remembered and noted by readers 
is that psychics of first-class power, especially materialising 
psychics, are- few and far between. They cannot be met 
with in every hamlet. 

It was the same in Bible times. There were not many 
prophets of the calibre of Moses and Elias, not many 
apostles like Peter, John, and Paul. 

Besides the natural rarity of those gifted men and 
women whom we term psychics, both the Church and the 
State have done their best to exterminate them. In days 
gone by, by faggot, axe, rope and sword ; in more modern 
times by imprisonment, social ostracism and ridicule. The 



354 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

marvel is that there are any left available, that the breed 
has not been destroyed, and the spiritual gifts stamped out. 
As the law of this county now stands, if Christ came 
back to-day and re-enacted the materialisation scene upon 
the Mount he would be liable to imprisonment as a rogue 
and a vagabond. In vain would he plead that his mission 
was divine. It would avail him naught, for the law has 
no cognisance of the spirit world. The barbarous laws 
under which psychics are now prosecuted, without the 
smallest attempt being made to ascertain whether they possess 
genuine supernormal gifts, might have been drawn up by 
men whose ancestors counted heads with one hand and 
thumbscrewed a Jew with the other. 

Under present conditions it will, therefore, be realised 
that materialising psychics are " rara aves," and will 
continue to be so until the psychic gifts are encouraged 
and prized as they should be. 

As I have before remarked, the evidence for survival 
and for the existence of the spirit world and its inhabitants 
is cumulative. 

Not only do men of science testify, but " all sorts and 
conditions of men " — doctors, lawyers, clergymen, engineers, 
bankers, merchants, mathematicians, authors, and many 
others — both men and women — in every walk of life add 
their testimony until it becomes overwhelming. This 
testimony also confirms the truth of the central incident 
of historic Christianity. 

My friend the late Vice-Admiral Usborne Moore served 
his country in many capacities, but it is doubtful whether 
he ever did greater service to mankind than when he 
undertook his laborious researches in the matter of human 
survival. 

Long training in navigation, exploration and charting, 
in which work he was officially engaged for many years, 
had made him a trained observer, quick to mark details 
and record events. On his retirement from active service 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 355 

he spent much time and money in a thorough, patient and 
painstaking investigation of these phenomena, in the 
course of which he visited the United States three times 
and spent a considerable period there. The result is care- 
fully set forth in a work of over 500 pages, Glimpses of the 
Next State* a book of the deepest interest, which should be 
read by everyone interested in this great question. He had 
remarkable experiences, both of materialisation phenomena 
and of recognition of the manifesting personalities. 

From being an agnostic in belief he became, as the result 
of this investigation, a convinced believer in the being of 
God, the existence of the spirit world, and in human 
survival after death. 

Speaking of materialisations he experienced in the 
United States, in the house of Mr J. B. Johnson of Toledo, 
He says : 

Before undertaking the investigation of the Johnsons I 
conferred with Mr H. T. Yaryan, Chief of the Secret Police. 
Mr Yaryan is a detective of great skill, and the last man in 
America to allow himself to be bamboozled. The Johnsons 
have given sittings at his house. He has watched them care- 
fully for years and assured me that they were genuine. After 
sitting with them several times I am sure that he is right. 

The following are extracts from the accounts : — 

6th January 1909. — Mr Z. and I examined the cabinet and 
took our seats four feet from it. The light was sufficient to 
read the time by a white-faced watch. 

Within two minutes the figure of a woman dressed in a white 
robe, with a girdle round her waist, sprang up from the floor, 
holding out her hands in my direction. I got up and went close 
to Johnson. From her build I was able to guess who the 
woman was. She tried to speak, but I could only catch Al 
(probably Aldin, the name of the Admiral's brother), but she 
dematerialised into the carpet before I could distinguish her 
features (1 Samuel xxviii. 13). 

* Glimpses of the Next State, by Vice-Admiral Usborne Moore. 
Watts & Co., Fleet Street. 



356 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Not long after two strong forms emerged. I was almost 
touching Johnson, who was entranced. On my right stood a 
woman tall as Johnson, wearing a white robe, a bright silver 
band on her forehead, and bracelets and jewels on her arms. 
Johnson afterwards stood up close alongside the two big spirit 
forms, the three close together were impressive. On this 
occasion fifteen or sixteen spirit forms emerged. One was a 
nun with very spirituelle countenance, and wore a bright 
silver cross about four inches long. Each sitter was visited 
by at least two departed friends, who were recognised. 

1 6th January 1909. — Snowing heavily. About twenty-five 
spirit personalities manifested, but I only saw the faces of two 
clearly enough to recognise them. These were Viola and Edna 
the nun. Viola is a very lively girl of eighteen or nineteen, 
with long streaming hair. I saw several forms dematerialise, 
one did it deliberately to show how it was done, and one de- 
materialised from the feet upwards. One of the prettiest 
sights was to see a little Indian girl called Oviola skip out into 
the circle of sitters. 

Iola (Admiral Moore's relative. — C. L. T.) brought my father 
and mother. I went to the entrance of the cabinet and saw 
two forms together, which I soon discovered were my parents, 
and the form of Iola behind them. 

■29th January 1909. — In less than five minutes Iola rose 
slowly out of the floor in front of me. My father and mother 
materialised. In these there was no possibility of mistake. 
My father had a nose like the Iron Duke and I saw him in a 
good light, three feet outside the cabinet, and his prominent 
feature was clearly distinguishable . 

The poor little waif "Kitty" manifested. She was more 
substantial-looking than any other figure. She appeared to 
be almost as solid as life. Flashlight photographs have been 
taken of her. I have one in my possession, and can affirm 
that it is the same child I saw. So natural and human is this 
picture that I at first thought it to be a fraud. Having seen 
the form I no longer have any doubt of its genuineness. 

30th January 190c). — At this sitting the Admiral records 
that " the musical-box was suspended in the air and 
moved round over our heads playing a tune " {vide pages 
272, 325). 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 357 

1st February 1909. — Nineteen separate spirit forms mani- 
fested, some reappeared twice or thrice. Including repetitions, 
ten were for me. Iola came first. I saw her profile plainly. 
Her height and figure were correct, and the face a good likeness. 
She talked with me in whispers. During this sitting I saw 
several spirits dematerialise. Some descended into the floor 
slowly. It was possible to follow their heads with the eye 
until the shoulders were level with the carpet. 

One old relative appeared to me whom I recognised. I kissed 
her as I would when she was in earth life and she returned it. 

In one case I touched a face, the temperature was normal 
and the cheek soft as velvet. 

10th January 191 1. — My friends, Mr and Mrs Z., were fortun- 
ate in seeing a number of their relatives, and I was more than 
satisfied. The antics of Viola were remarkable on this occasion. 
She v came first and showed her face to two or three members of 
the circle, at a distance of one or two inches from theirs, allow- 
ing me to examine her long hair. She made three or four 
visits. Once she stood talking outside the cabinet, and sud- 
denly disappeared from that spot, reappearing instantly behind 
my chair with her hands on my shoulders, and some of her 
hair over my right shoulder. The distance from one place 
to the other was six feet , and as she wore a white dress and the 
light was good she could not have moved without being seen 
had she been a mortal [on page 220 of his book the Admiral 
describes how Viola came up through the floor on another 
occasion], while on 19th January, the next sitting, Viola 
again manifested and flitted about peering into our faces as 
she did last time. With her consent I took hold of her tresses 
of long hair on either side of the head with both hands and 
gently drew her head down to mine, lne light was good 
enough to see the face and form clearly down to the feet. 

Concerning " Viola " and " Kitty," the Admiral further says : 

"Viola" and especially "Kitty" are able to assume the 
substance of mortality at will and to throw it off in a fraction 
of a second (Glimpses, page 330). 

The most remarkable materialisation, however, that the 
Admiral saw was on the 10th January, when his sister 
Catharine manifested : 



358 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

She first came out of the cabinet and gave her name and 
said, in low tones, " We are all here, father, mother and brother 
Aldin." She returned into the cabinet and in a minute or two 
appeared much plainer. Mrs Johnson took her out into a 
better light only six feet from the lamp. I moved first, 
Catharine behind me, and Mrs Johnson brought up the rear. 
We stopped when the light was good enough to read a news- 
paper. I faced about and found myself looking at a woman 
about 5 feet 4 inches in height, with extremely pretty, ani- 
mated face, full of character, and rich auburn hair. We kissed 
each other on the mouth ; her lips were warm and moist. We 
then proceeded back to the cabinet. As the spirit was enter- 
ing I brought my hand down upon her white shoulder. My 
hand met with no resistance whatsoever. I discussed this 
incident afterwards at Detroit (Mrs Wriedt's) with Catharine 
herself. I asked her why my hand went through her shoulder. 
She said, " I was just beginning to dematerialise." 

Later my father and mother came together, and a little girl 
in a Scotch plaid came to Mr Z. The nun Edna arose from 
the carpet two feet in front of me. After stoppng two minutes 
she dematerialised, and soon afterwards rose from the carpet 
in the same place as before. 

From these accounts it will be seen how completely 
Admiral Moore's testimony and his American experience 
support that of Florence Marryat. 

Another of my friends, Miss Katharine Bates, a lady who, 
like Admiral Moore, has travelled all over the world, and 
has published several interesting works, gives the same 
testimony to the evidential nature and reality of materialisa- 
tion in the dry atmosphere of the States, both in her book, 
A Year in the Great Republic, and also in her most interesting 
work, Seen and Unseen,* of which it is to be hoped that the 
publishers will soon produce another edition. 

After speaking of a number of materialisations she 

witnessed with the sisters Berry (through whom Florence 

Marryat 's daughters, Florence, Gertie and Yonnie, her 

brother-in-law Ed. Church, her friend John Powles, and 

* Seen and Unseen, by E. Katharine Bates. Greening & Co. 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 359 

another acquaintance, manifested), she relates how, as it 
was her first experience and as none of the personalities 
came for her, she thought it trickery. However, she was 
persuaded to try again, this time in New York, where she 
had only just arrived and where she was an absolute stranger. 
She says {Seen and Unseen, page 19) : 

We knew nothing beforehand of the psychic. Some eight 
people were present in a very small room. All were perfect 
strangers to Miss Greenlow and me. There was no room for a 
cabinet, so a curtain was hung across a tiny alcove, just the 
ordinary "arch " found in most rooms of the kind. I went 
behind the curtain before the sitting began. There was barely 
space for us both to turn round in. The carpet on both sides 
was one piece. There was absolutely no room for any trap- 
door machinery, even if such could have been worked in the 
perfect silence in which we sat, within two feet of the alcove. 
The psychic sat among us at first. We were often sitting in 
absolute silence when fresh forms appeared. 

I was told again and again that too much concentration of 
thought on the part of the sitters was deterrent. I can cor- 
roborate the assertion that too much concentration of thought 
upon them proves deterrent to the spirits, for on more than 
one occasion I heard a voice from the curtain or cabinet saying : 
" Do get the people's minds off us ; we can do nothing whilst 
they are fixed on us so intensely," as though thought in spirit 
life corresponded to some physical obstacle on the earth plane. 

The first spirit to come (the daughter of an old gentleman 
sitting near me) intimated through him that she would like me 
to go up and help her to materialise the white veil which all 
wore, and which, though perfectly transparent, is considered a 
necessary shield between them and the earth's influences, on 
the same principle, I suppose, as we put on blue spectacles 
to protect our eyes from the blinding rays of the sun. 

She came out from the alcove, held both her hands in front 
of her, turning them backwards and forwards. The soft 
clinging material of her gown ended high up on the shoulders, 
so there were no sleeves to be reckoned with. I stood close 
to her, holding out my dress, and as she rubbed her hands to 
and fro a sort of white lace or net came from them like foam, 
and lay upon my gown which I was holding up towards her. 



360 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

I touched this material and held it in my hands. It had sub- 
stance but it was light as gossamer and quite unlike any stuff 
I ever saw in a shop. The very softest gossamer tulle that 
old ladies sometimes exhibit as having belonged to their 
grandmothers is perhaps the nearest approach to what I lifted 
in my hands, but even this does not accurately describe it. 
When long enough she took up the veil, unfolded it, and covered 
her head with it. * 

Other spirits now appeared for other people, and conversed 
with them in low tones, A little child's voice came as a relief 
now and then. I was becoming drowsy when my attention 
was aroused by hearing that a very beautiful spirit with a 
diamond star in her forehead had appeared and asked for me, 
saying that she had been a friend of mine on earth. 

This information was conveyed by the child's voice, but the 
psychic's husband looked behind the curtain and told me of 
the diamond star. Having no idea who the friend might be, 
I begged for further particulars before going to speak to her. 

" She passed from earth life about five years ago and in 
Germany, " answered the psychic's husband. This was less 
vague, but I would not go up until a name had been given, 
and I asked for this before leaving my seat. The child's voice 
said the spirit would give the name, and in due time it was 
given (Muriel, we will call it), and I had then no further 
excuse for refusing to speak to the spirit. I went up to the 
curtain and she appeared in front of it. 

My friend in earth life was very pale and had exquisitely 
chiselled features, and the ones I now looked upon were of 
the same cast ; the height was also similar, and an indefinable 
atmosphere of refinement, purity and quiet dignity, for which 
she had been remarkable, all were present with this materialisa- 
tion. 

I did not feel frightened, but I did feel embarrassed, and 
naturally so, seeing how unwilling and grudging my recognition 



* Spiritual beings can fashion their own raiment. In vain do 
objectors, among the orthodox, pour scorn upon the ' ghosts of 
clothes.' They merely display their own ignorance. When Christ 
appeared after his resurrection he was clothed. Where did he 
get these clothes from ? They were not ordinary material gar- 
ments, for they vanished when he did. Have these objectors any 
sneers for the " ghosts of the clothes " of the arisen Christ ? 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 361 

of her individuality had been. She seemed conscious of this, 
for she almost immediately mentioned her hands, holding them 
out for inspection and saying : " Don't you remember my 
hands ? I was so proud of my hands ! " Now, as a matter of 
fact, my friend was noted for her beautiful hands. Casting 
about for something to say to her I said: "Have you no 
message for your sister ? '■' In a moment and without the 
slightest hesitation, she said: "Tell poor Jessie," going 
on with a message peculiarly appropriate to the facts of the 
case. The spirit spoke feebly and with difficulty (the first 
materialisation, vide page 351), "not having much strength," 
she told me. I asked if her father (who had died a few months 
previously) were with her. " Not yet," she said gently, " but 
I know that he has passed over." She then kissed my hand 
and faded away before my eyes, not returning, apparently, to 
the curtain (close to which I stood ), but vanishing into thin air. 

Miss Bates goes on to relate how ten days later she had 
another sitting in the evening. On this occasion 

A very beautiful female spirit materialised and offered to 
sit on my lap, an offer I closed with at once. She was some 
five feet eight inches in height, and a well-developed woman. 
I moved my feet from the ground the moment she sat down, 
which was easily done as my chair was a high one. She re- 
mained for several minutes in this position, resting, of necessity, 
her whole weight upon me, which was about equal to that of a 
small kitten or a lady's muff. There was an appreciable weight, 
but I have never nursed any baby that was not far heavier. 
The veil this time was materialised in the usual way, my friend 
going up to watch the process. My spirit friend (Muriel) 
appeared again, and more strongly this time. 

This interesting experience of Miss Bates well illustrates 
the different degrees of materialisation, the full form in 
this case weighing no more than a small kitten, while in 
the case of the materialisation of " Florence " (page 346) the 
figure had the full weight and solidity of a mortal. This is 
dependent on the amount of material withdrawn temporarily 
from the psychic and the sitters. It will be noted that on 
Muriel's second manifestation she is described as stronger. 



362 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

This was the case with the manifestation of the Christ, and 
is a marked feature of spirit return. 

It will be noted, however, that this figure, of a full- 
grown woman of five feet eight inches in height, though 
weighing no more than a kitten, yet could walk and talk 
like a mortal. 

On the day before she left New York Miss Bates had a 
third experience of materialisation. She says of this : 

Picking up a newspaper I cast my eye over the list of 
psychics. 

She copied out one of the names at haphazard. Con- 
tinuing, she writes : 

On this occasion we were ushered into a much more imposing 
room. Later in the evening, the sitting being in full swing, a 
spirit dressed in a white " sister's " dress appeared at the door 
of the cabinet and Mrs Stoddart Gray (the psychic) asked if 
anyone could speak German. I offered to come to the rescue. 
The moment I went up to the cabinet the figure seemed to 
gain strength, and came quite out of the cabinet and said to 
me, in the most refined German : " Ich bin die schwester von 
Madame Schewitsch,'- mentioning the name of the foreign 
friend with whom I had been spending the afternoon. "Ich 
weisz das Sie Heute Nach mittag bei meiner schwester varen." * 

She had evidently a strong, almost overwhelming, desire to 
make some communication to me for her sister, but the diffi- 
culty in doing so seemed equally strong. It lay beyond the 
question of language. I could understand perfectly her well- 
chosen and well-pronounced words, but some obstacle seemed 
to prevent her telling me, and her despairing attempt to 
overcome it was painful in the extreme. It seemed to be some 
sort of warning she wished to convey, for the words " Achtung "■ 
and " Krankheit " ("warning " and " illness ") were repeated 
more than once. 

I then asked if she could write it, and she caught eagerly at 
the idea. So I borrowed a pencil and some paper and placed 

* I am the sister of Madame Schewitsch — I know that you 
spent this afternoon with my sister. 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 363 

them on a small table in the middle of the room. She came 
quite close to the table (five gas burners were more than half 
turned on, so there was plenty of light), sat down and took up 
the pencil and almost immediately threw it down again, saying 
in a most unhappy and despairing voice : " Nein ! nein ! 
Ich kann es selbst nicht schreiben " * and vanished before my 
very eyes as she rose from the table (cf. Luke xxiv. 31). 

Three or four months later, while travelling in California, 
I heard that Madame Schewitsch had had a long and severe 
illness from which it was feared she would never recover. 
About twenty minutes after the " sister " had thus disappeared 
a figure in white came forward very swiftly, saying : " For 
you," pointing towards me. 

I went up, recognising who it was, but determined to give 
no sign of this fact. The spirit looked at me with surprise. 
As I remained silent she whispered : ' Don't you know me ? "- 
I asked her for her name. " Why, I am Muriel," came the 
instant answer. On this third appearance my spirit friend 
asked me to kiss her. I confess that I complied with some 
amount of trepidation, which proved quite unnecessary. 

There was nothing the least repulsive in the touch, but an 
indescribable atmosphere of freshness and purity which always 
surrounded this friend was very apparent. Another little 
point is that I had forgotten my friend's love of violets (she 
always wore them when possible) until I smelt them distinctly 
whilst speaking to her. It must also be remembered that 
until the day of the sitting I had never dreamed of going to 
Mrs Gray's, nor even heard her name. I picked it out of a 
newspaper by chance — amongst at least thirty others. 

Miss Bates describes in these most interesting accounts 
how the materialised figure was unable to write the message, 
but other observers have seen the materialised form write. 
This is recorded by Florence Marryat as happening on 
21st May 1874 (There is No Death, page 144) when Katie 
King wrote a farewell message for her, also by Alfred 
Smedley, the engineer (whose testimony I give immediately 
following that of Miss Bates). He says (Reminiscences, 
page 100) : 

* No ! No ! I cannot even write it. 



364 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

She seemed to be melting away. I exclaimed : " See, the 
form is dematerialising." Having decreased about two feet in 
height and proportionately in breadth, the process stopped, 
and gradually the form rose again to its former proportions. 
I offered her my hand, which she took. I then asked if she 
would write a few lines when, taking paper and pencil from me, 
she bent over the table and wrote a few lines, signing them 
with her name. 

Sir William Crookes also testifies as follows :— 

A luminous hand came from the upper part of the room, and 
after hovering near me for a few seconds took the pencil from 
my hand, rapidly wrote on a sheet of paper, threw the pencil 
down and then rose up over our heads, gradually fading into 
the darkness. 

The similar coming down and rising up of a materialised 
figure, who allowed himself to be handled, and conversed 
with the party for a considerable time, is described by Mr 
Smedley, whose further experiences are here described. 

He writes (Reminiscences, pages 45-47) : 

After singing a couple of hymns, a slightly illuminated cloud 
was observed in the corner near the ceiling. It floated towards 
the centre of the room, grew brighter and the upper part of a 
man appeared in it, which hovered close over the centre of the 
table and remained superimposed, there being no visible or 
tangible lower parts of his body. He held a strange light in 
his hand (cf. 280), which grew so bright as to make the room 
light enough to read a newspaper. (There was no chandelier 
in this room.) He greeted us with "Good-evening." He 
had a fine deep bass voice, dark eyes, fine head of hair and full 
long beard. He allowed us to examine his lamp. His fingers 
felt as natural as mine. After answering a number of questions 
he bade us good-evening and floated up over our heads back 
to where he had first appeared, his marvellous lamp growing 
dimmer, until both disappeared." {Cf. Acts i. 9, 10 ; and 
pages 115, 279.) 

Christ's dematerialisation at the Ascension undoubtedly 
showed exactly the same phenomena as here noted, and as 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 365 

seen by us on 19th December 1907 (page 279). The cloud 
mentioned in Acts i. 9 was not a cloud in the sky as commonly 
supposed, but a cloud of brightness (the word used is 
ve<£eA?7, a white cloud or vapour, as distinguished from 
fieXavta, a black cloud). " A cloud received him out of 
their sight " means not that he disappeared in the clouds 
but that his form ascended, and resolved itself into a 
cloud and so disappeared, probably at no great height 
above the ground. The Ascension probably occurred in 
the subdued light of evening or early morning. (116) 

Writing by the materialised form is termed " direct 
writing" as distinguished from "automatic writing."* 

* In automatic writing, as distinguished from direct, the pencil is 
held directly by the psychic and the hand writes involuntarily, 
controlled by some external spirit influence. The same thing takes 
place with the planchette. 

In these cases the contents of the messages have to be looked to 
for proof of independent and external spirit agency. That this 
automatic writing takes place has been abundantly proved in the 
past, and I myself have had absolute evidence of it. On 5th December 
191 7 my wife said, on awakening in the morning, that she had dreamed 
that if we sat with a planchette we should get results. As we had 
tried the experiment on several occasions during past years, but 
without success. I made light of it. However, later in the day she 
again suggested a trial. We therefore sat to the planchette. Almost 
immediately it began to move, strongly and vigorously. I now asked 
my wife to take her hands off the planchette, while I kept mine on. 
Under these circumstances I could get no movement whatsoever, 
the little board remaining absolutely inert under my fingers. My 
wife now held her hand above my hand, but distant from my hand 
about two inches, and not touching either my hand or the planchette. 
Instantly the planchette began to move vigorously and was soon 
sweeping round in large ovals, dragging my hands with it. 

It now wrote my mother's name, Mary Tweedale, and answered 
questions by writing " Yes " and " No." As soon as my wife's 
hand was withdrawn the motion ceased, but the moment her hand 
was held above mine, but not touching it, it was just like switching 
on the current to an electro motor, and the planchette promptly 
raced away with my hands, the drag or pull being very evident. 
Exactly the same thing happened when my daughters tried the ex- 
periment, the holding of their mother's hand above theirs being the 
signal for the movement of the instrument. This experience was a 
convincing one. 



366 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

One is reminded of the passage in the Book of Daniel 
(v. 5) : " And the same hour came forth fingers of a man's 
hand and wrote over against the candlestick on the plaister 
of the wall of the King's palace." 

The ancient and modern instances are of identically the 
same nature. 

This testimony of Miss Bates strongly corroborates that 
of the two previous witnesses. Although the climatic con- 
ditions in this country are vastly inferior for this purpose to 
those in the United States still many fine full-form materialisa- 
tions have been witnessed here, notably through Madame 
D'Esperance, Mrs Mellon, Miss C. E. Wood, Cecil Husk, 
Eglington and others. 

Mr Alfred Smedley, the proprietor of the Eagle Foundry 
and Engineering Works of Belper, a man of good standing, 
good mechanical training and business acumen, bears, 
together with several other gentlemen, the fullest testimony 
to the materialisations through Miss C. E. Wood. These 
were obtained under stringent test conditions, the psychic 
being enclosed in a cage, the door of which was screwed up 
from the outside. The full account is contained in Mr 
Smedley 's Reminiscences,* and is of the deepest interest. 
The following is the description of the appearance and 
doings of one of the personalities, the psychic being all 
the while not only screwed up in the cage but also clad in 
black clothing and bound, sealed and stitched to the chair 
inside the cage, and also to the floor of the cage and every- 
thing being subjected to a thorough examination (Remini- 
scences, page 102) : 

We had not long to wait before the curtain opened and 
" Benny " walked out. His form was erect and his step firm. 
I offered him an apple and he at once stretched out his hand 
and took it, and was heard to bite a piece out of it. Walking 

* Some Reminiscences, by Alfred Smedley. Published at Office of 
Light, 6 Queen Square, Southampton Row, London. 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 367 

up to me he placed the piece in my mouth. In this manner 
he divided the apple into about six pieces, which were in suc- 
cession placed in the mouths of as many different persons. 
Another gave him an orange. With his teeth he tore the rind 
off, and dividing it into many parts gave a portion to such 
as were within reach. 



Compare for the moment this wonderful experience with 
that related in Luke xxiv. 43, where we are told that " they 
gave him a piece of a broiled fish and of an honeycomb and 
he did eat before them." It is perfectly plain that modern 
and ancient materialisations are of exactly the same nature. 
On this occasion he most probably drank as well as ate, for 
in Matt. xxvi. 29 (when old wine was used), he tells the dis- 
ciples that he will drink new wine with them in the kingdom 
of his Father — i.e. when he had passed beyond the grave 
into the spirit world. The new wine from the October 
vintage — which the apostles were accused of drinking too 
freely at Pentecost (Acts ii. 13) — would be just available. 

To return to the Reminiscences, on page 114 the appear- 
ance and disappearance of this personality is minutely 
observed and described as follows : — 



Thus pleasantly sped the time when we were delighted to 
hear the little Indian girl " Pocka " say that Benny thought 
he would be able to materialise outside the cabinet. After 
singing for twenty minutes, several friends together said : 
" There is something white lying on the floor outside the 
curtains." It appeared to Mr Smedley and myself and others to 
be about the size of a shilling. It so remained for a minute or 
two, then the bulk increased, but so indefinite was it in shape 
that it was difficult to think of anything with which to com- 
pare it. When it had attained the height of about eighteen 
inches its development stopped for a minute or two, then 
its proportions steadily increased. Dividing lines appeared, 
shading off into what appeared to be the rudiments of a robe. 
A minute or two more and the change was such as to lead a 
lady sitting near me to say: "I believe it is Pocka." I 



368 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

replied : " We must wait a little longer as the form is not yet 
developed." And I was right, for it continued to rise and 
broaden like a flower opening its petals to the sun, except that 
the process was quicker, until Benny stood before us perfect 
and complete. He laid his hand heavily on Mr Smedley's 
head and stroked his face. Mr Smedley took his hand and 
found it larger than his own and double the size of that of the 
psychic. 

" Benny," I said, " I would like to ask you a few questions. 
Who made you ? " "If you mean this material body," he 
replied, pointing to his chest, " I made myself." 

" Where did you get the material from ? " I asked. 

" I got some from you, some from other members of the 
circle, some from the atmosphere and some from the psychic, 
but it all came through the psychic," he answered. 

" Can any spirit materialise a body if conditions are pro- 
vided ? " I asked. 

" No. Not until they have learned to do so. We have all 
to learn on this side just the same as you," he replied. 

"When in London at one of Mr William's sittings," I re- 
marked, " John King appeared with only the upper part of his 
body materialised. I should have thought that, given the 
knowledge and power to materialise, the whole body would be 
equally developed." 

"No," he replied, "that is not so. When a spirit has 
learned the art of materialising and conditions are good, he 
can materialise any part of the body he wishes, just as the 
hand was made that wrote on the wall at Belshazzar's 
feast." 

He chatted with us for about ten minutes. Then the time 
of his departure drew near, and his exit was as wonderful as 
his advent. 

A good idea of the phenomenon might be obtained by having 
a figure made of wax placed near a good fire so that every part 
of the figure might be brought under the action of the heat, 
but with this essential difference, that whereas when the figure 
of wax was dissolved the material might be gathered up, in 
the case of Benny the dematerialisation was so complete as 
not to leave a vestige of anything to tell either of what he was 
made or where he had gone. Measuring his full height against 
the curtains of the cabinet, he stood before us a man of as fine 
proportions as any in the room. As his white robes stood out 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 369 

strongly relieved by the dark background we were able to note 
distinctly, inch by inch, the lessening of the form until there 
lay on the floor what appeared to be a piece of white material 
about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, and eventually that 
gradually disappeared. 

A similar gradual dematerialisation of Katie King was 
witnessed by Florence Marry at and several others, among 
whom was Mr C. S. Hall, F.S.A., the cultured editor of The 
Art Journal. She says {There is No Death, page 143) : 

Katie took up her station against the drawing-room wall 
with her arms extended. . . . She looked like herself for the 
space of a second only. Then she began gradually to melt 
away. . . . First the features became blurred and indistinct. 
They seemed to run into each other. The eyes sunk in their 
sockets, the nose disappeared, the frontal bone fell in ; next 
the limbs appeared to give way under her, and she sank lower 
and lower on the carpet, like a crumbling edifice. At last there 
was nothing but her head left above the ground— then a heap of 
white drapery only which disappeared with a whisk, and we 
were left staring by the light of three gas burners at the spot 
on which " Katie King " had stood. 

This birth from a luminous spot, no bigger at times than 
a shilling, of a full-sized figure of a man, woman or child, 
audible, tangible, and endued with all the attributes of 
life, capable of carrying on a conversation and of performing 
many complex and forcible actions, and the gradual resolu- 
tion of such living figure to a column of cloudy light finally 
dying away in a small luminous spot on the floor — this 
wonderful metamorphosis has often been recorded by the 
earlier observers and investigators. 

Their observations were received with contemptuous 
disbelief and regarded as little better than the ravings of 
madmen. The careful observations of scientists of the 
first rank have proved that these things are facts and that 
the early observers of these phenomena observed and 
2 A 



370 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

recorded truly. The following is the testimony of Professor 
Richet, Member of the Academy of Medicine and Professor 
of Psychology in the Faculty of Medicine, Paris, the eminent 
French savant who has given many years to this investiga- 
tion, giving an account of materialisations observed by him 
through the psychic, Mademoiselle Marthe Berand at a 
later date. He says, in his article published in The Annals 
of Psychical Science for October and November, 1905 : 

It is not without some hesitation that I have decided to 
publish the following experiences. Nevertheless it seems to 
me that the facts are undeniable. 

After describing the room and the careful precaution 
taken to ensure against any deception, he gives a minute 
account of several materialisations. Continuing, he says : 

It results from these facts that the figure called " Bien Boa " 
possesses all the attributes of life. It walks, speaks, moves 
and breathes like a human being. Its body is resistant, and 
has a certain muscular strength. The following phenomena 
appear to me to be of prime importance. On Tuesday, 
August 29th, 1905, I saw, without any movement of the curtain, 
a white light at " X " {vide sketch), on the ground outside the 
curtain, between the table and the curtain. I half rose, in 
order to look over the table. I saw as it were a luminous 
ball floating over the ground ; then rising straight upwards 
very rapidly appeared " Bien Boa." He was then between 
the table and the curtain, being bom, so to speak, out of the 
flooring outside the curtain, which had not stirred. The 
luminous spot preceded "Bien Boa's" appearance, and he 
raised himself straight up. Then he tries to come among us ; 
I could not say whether he walks or glides. Then he suddenly 
sinks down and disappears into the ground. 

A very little time after (three or four minutes), at the very 
feet of the General, we again see the same white ball on the 
ground ; it mounts rapidly straight up to the height of a man, 
and then suddenly sinks down to the ground. 

It appears to me that this experiment is decisive ; for the 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 371 

formation of a luminous spot on the ground which then changes 
into a living and walking being cannot be produced by any- 
trick. 

Several times for instance — three times on Thursday, 
August 24th — I saw him plunge himself straight into the ground. 
He suddenly became shorter, and under our eyes disappeared 
into the ground, then raised himself again suddenly in a vertical 
line. The head with the turban and black moustache grew, 
rose, rose, until it nearly reached the canopy. At certain 
moments it was obliged to lean and bend, owing to its great 
height. Then suddenly its head sank down right to the ground 
and disappeared. 

I can find nothing better to compare this phenomena with 
than the figure of a Jack-in-the-box, which comes out all of 
a sudden. But I do not know of anything resembling that 
vanishing into the earth in a straight line. Important as this 
last experiment appears, it seems less decisive than the pre- 
ceding experiment — the birth by means of a white spot on the 
ground. 

Many photographs of the figure were obtained by Professor 
Richet and other observers present, some of them stereo- 
scopic and showing the figure perfectly in relief. These 
stereoscopic pictures are published in the Annals for 
November 1905. 

Professor Richet 's observations and experiences confirm 
those of Sir William Crookes. Speaking of them, the 
Professor says : 

I am convinced that I have been present at realities. 

Certainly I cannot say in what materialisation consists. 
I am only ready to maintain that there is something pro- 
foundly mysterious in it which will change from top to bottom 
our ideas on nature and on life. 

Come we now to the testimony of Professor Wallace,* 

* Alfred Russel Wallace, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., the eminent 
Scientist and Naturalist, co-discoverer and promulgator with 
Darwin of Natural Selection and the theory of Evolution. 



372 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

the eminent naturalist. For a full account the reader 
should refer to his book of personal experiences. Perhaps 
the most remarkable one he relates is given on page 330 
of his autobiography (My Life, vol. ii.). He there says, 
speaking of Mr Monk, through whom many such results 
were obtained : 



Four gentlemen secured his exclusive services for a year, 
hiring apartments for him on a first floor in Bloomsbury, and 
they invited me to see the phenomena that occurred. It 
was a bright sunny afternoon, and everything happened in 
the full light of day. After a little conversation Monk appeared 
to go into a trance, then stood up a few feet in front of us, 
and after a little while pointed to his side, saying, "Look." 
We saw there a faint white patch on his coat on the left side. 
This grew brighter, then seemed to flicker and extend upwards 
and downwards till very gradually it formed a cloudy pillar 
extending from his shoulder to his feet and close to his body, 
then he shifted himself a little sideways, the cloudy figure 
standing still but appearing joined to him by a cloudy band 
at the height of which it had first begun to form. 

Then, after a few minutes more, Monk said, " Look," 
and passed his hand through the connecting band, severing 
it. He and the figure then moved away from each other 
until they were five or six feet apart ; the figure had now 
assumed the appearance of a thickly draped female form 
with arms and hands just visible. Monk looked towards it 
and again said, "Look," and then clapped his hands. On 
this the figure put out her hands and clapped them as he 
had done, and we all distinctly heard her clap following his, 
but fainter. The figure then moved slowly back to him, grew 
fainter and shorter, and was apparently absorbed into his 
body, as it had grown out of it. 

Mr Wedgewood assured me that in the course of their long 
investigations they had had far more wonderful results. In 
some cases, instead of a shrouded and somewhat shadowy 
female figure, a tall robed male figure was produced. This 
figure would remain with them half-an-hour or more, would 
touch them and allow of close examination of his body and 
clothing, and could exert considerable force (c/. Luke xxiv. 39). 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 373 

Speaking of this experience, Professor Wallace says : 

Of course such a narration as this, to those who know nothing 
of the phenomena that gradually lead up to it, seems mere 
midsummer madness. But to those who have for years ob- 
tained positive knowledge of a great variety of facts equally 
strange this is only the culminating point of a long series of 
phenomena, all antecedently incredible to the people who talk 
so confidently about the laws of nature. 

The famous psychic, Eusapia Palaclino, whose psychic 
powers have been so amply and convincingly proved by the 
investigations of Messrs Baggally, Fielding and Carrington, 
two of them expert conjurers and all experienced investi- 
gators {Proceedings S.P.R., vol. xxiii.) embodied in a sub- 
stantial volume of some 261 pages, having just recently 
passed to the other side of life, it is interesting to reproduce 
an account of a recognised materialisation which came 
through her psychic powers. It is contained in The Annals 
oj Psychic Science for 1907, and is by Dr Joseph Venzano 
of Genoa (vide also Light, 22nd September 1917) . The sitting 
took place on 20th December 1900 in the rooms of the 
Minerva Club, Genoa ; the psychic was Eusapia Paladino 
and there were four others present beside the doctor. 

He thus describes what took place : 

In spite of the dimness of the light I could distinctly see 
Madame Paladino and my fellow-sitters. Suddenly I per- 
ceived that behind me was a form, fairly tall, which was leaning 
its head on my left shoulder and sobbing violently, so that 
those present could hear the sobs ; it kissed me repeatedly. I 
clearly perceived the outlines of this face, which touched my 
own, and I felt the very fine and abundant hair in contact 
with my left cheek, so that I could be quite sure that it was a 
woman. The table then began to move, and by typtology 
gave the name of a close family connection who was known to 
no one present except myself. She had died some time before, 
and on account of incompatibility of temperament there had 
been serious disagreements with her. I was so far from ex- 
pecting this typtological response that I at first thought that 
this was a case of coincidence of name ; but whilst I was 



374 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

mentally forming this reflection I felt a mouth, with warm 
breath, touch my left ear and whisper, in a low voice in the 
Genoese dialect (Eusapia was born in the province of Bari) a 
succession of sentences, the murmur of which was audible 
to the sitters. These sentences were broken by bursts of 
weeping, and their gist was to repeatedly implore pardon 
for injuries done to me, with a fulness of detail connected 
with family affairs which could only be known to the person 
in question. I felt compelled to reply to the excuses offered 
me with expressions of affection, and to ask pardon in my 
turn if my resentment of the wrongs referred to had been 
excessive. But I had scarcely uttered the first syllables when 
two hands, with exquisite delicacy, applied themselves to my 
lips and prevented my continuing. The form then thanked 
me, embraced me, kissed me, and disappeared. 

It is impossible to explain away such experiences as these 
by any of the poor and paltry theories by which ignorant and 
inexperienced objectors endeavour to set aside the accumu- 
lated experiences of men trained to accurate observation. 

I have already offered sufficient evidence in this chapter 
to establish materialisation as a fact, but I will bring 
forward more and more witnesses. It would be easy to 
fill a big volume with this testimony. 

Recently Mr Gambier Bolton, late President of the 
Psychological Society, London ; Fellow of the Royal 
Geographical Society ; Fellow of the Zoological Society ; 
Lecturer before the Royal Society, and the author of several 
books, has published the results of seven years' patient and 
careful investigation into the phenomena of materialisation, 
and gives the results in a work of deep interest.* 

These materialisation sittings were attended by a great 
number of eminent and well-known people, including members 
of the royal household ; distinguished soldiers like Field -Marshal 
Lord Wolseley, General Carrington, General Sir Alfred Turner, 
General Gordon and Colonel Valentine Gordon — both relatives 

* Ghosts in Solid Form, by Gambier Bolton. Rider & Sons, 
8 Paternoster Row, London. 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 375 

of the great General Gordon — and numerous other officers of 
the highest rank ; distinguished sailors, great physicians from 
Harley Street, London, and elsewhere, including the distin- 
guished head of the Army Medical Department, Surgeon- 
General Fawcett ; members of the diplomatic serivces from 
nearly every civilised nation on earth ; officials from the 
Treasury, the Foreign Office, the India Office, the Colonial 
Office, and the War Office ; members of the House of Lords, 
members of the House of Commons — of all the many known 
shades of political opinion ; great journalists like W. T. Stead, 
and many others from different parts of the world ; great 
writers like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, John Oliver Hobbes 
(Mrs Craigie), Florence Marryat, and many others ; great 
scientists like Signor Marconi ; celebrated ecclesiastics of 
almost every degree, and holding innumerable creeds and 
dogmas (some of them carefully disguised as laymen and coming 
under assumed names). 

My friend the late Vice- Admiral Usborne Moore witnessed 
his first materialisation at these most carefully conducted 
experimental sittings of Mr Gambier Bolton. The first 
case he reports was a severe test with the psychic Husk, 
who at that time was nearly blind, and is now, alas ! totally 
so. Two of my friends have testified to the recognising 
of the forms of their deceased relatives through Mr Husk's 
psychic powers, so that I can to this extent confirm what 
Mr Gambier Bolton says of him. Apart from this I may 
say that there is abundant evidence on record as to the 
genuine and remarkable powers of this psychic. 

Experiment No. i 

Place — Lyndhurst, New Forest, Hampshire. Psychic A, 
male, aged about 46 

The psychic, a nearly blind man, * was taken by us on a dark 
night to a spot totally unknown to him, as he had only just 
arrived from London by train, and was led into a large travel- 
ling caravan, one which he had never been near before, as it 
had only recently left the builder's hands. 

* Husk. 



376 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

I had made a critical examination of the interior of the 
caravan, and had satisfied myself that no one was or could 
possibly be concealed in it. 

We did not even possess a chair of any kind for the psychic 
or ourselves to sit upon, so we placed for his use a board on 
top of the iron cooking-range which was fixed in the kitchen 
portion of the caravan, whilst we sat upon the two couches 
which were used as beds in the living portion of the caravan. 
There was no music, no powerful "human battery" in the 
shape of a number of picked sitters ; in fact, the conditions 
were just about as bad as they could possibly be, and yet, 
within ten minutes of my locking the door behind us, the figure 
of a tall man stood before us, a man so tall that he was com- 
pelled to bow his head as he passed under the six-foot-high 
partition which separated the two sections of the caravan. 

He said, " I am Colonel who was ' killed,' as you say, 

at the battle of in Egypt. For many years during my 

earth-life I was deeply interested in materialisations, and spent 
the last night of my life in England experimenting with this 
very psychic ; and it is a great pleasure to me to be able to 
return to you— strangers though you both are to me — through 
him. To prove to you that I am not the psychic masquerading 
before you, will you please come here and stand close to me, 
and so settle the matter for yourself ? " 

I at once rose and stood beside him, almost touching him. 
I then discovered that not only were his features and his colour- 
ing totally different to those of the psychic, but that he 
towered above me, standing, as nearly as I could judge, six foot 
two or three inches, and was certainly four inches taller than 
either the psychic or myself. 

Whilst thus standing beside him, and at a distance of about 
eight feet from the psychic, we could both hear him moving 
uneasily on his hard seat on the kitchen range, sighing and 
moaning as if in pain. 

Experiment No. 3 

Place — West Hampstead, London, N.W. Psychic B,* female, 
aged about 49 

Persons who happened to be in England a few years ago at 
the time that two lawsuits were brought against a celebrated 



* Florrie Cook. 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 377 

conjurer by the clever young man who had succeeded in 
exposing one of his most mystifying tricks, will well remember 
' the sensation caused by the giving of both verdicts against 
the conjurer ; and the young man — to whom I shall refer as 
Mr X. — at once became famous as the man who had beaten 
one of the cleverest conjurers of the day. 

A friend of mine, who had been present on several occasions 
when Sir William Crookes' psychic — Florrie Cook (Mrs Corner), 
had produced materialisations in gaslight at my house in 
London, asked her to visit his house at West Hampstead. 

She at once accepted his invitation to sit there under strict 
test conditions ; securely tied to her chair, to have strong iron 
rings fastened to the floor-boards, through which ropes would 
be passed, these ropes to be securely fastened to the psychic's 
legs ; all knots of every size and kind to be sealed. 

One of his friends happened to know the celebrated Mr X., 
and as he had so recently succeeded in beating so notable a 
conjurer, he was invited to be present and to take entire 
charge of the tying up, the binding and sealing arrangements 
in order to render the escape of the psychic from her chair 
an impossibility. 

When I joined the party in the drawing-room, Mr X., to 
whom I was introduced, was busily engaged in tying the 
psychic up with his own ropes and tapes, sealing every knot 
with special sealing-wax and with a seal provided by our host. 
The room was a large one, and a portion at one end had been 
cleared of all furniture, and in the centre of this space only the 
psychic seated upon her chair, and Mr X., busily at work, 
were to be seen ; and the latter, after another fifteen minutes 
of real hard labour, was asked by our host if he was thoroughly 
satisfied that the psychic was fastened to her chair securely. 
He replied that so securely was she fastened that if she could 
produce phenomena of any kind whatever under such con- 
ditions, he would at once admit their genuineness. 

The psychic was all this time in a perfectly normal state, 
and not flurried in any way. 

Mr X., after stepping backwards to have a final look at the 
result of his labours, then walked close to the spot where the 
psychic was sitting in gaslight, and put one hand up towards 
the top of the curtain, and was in the act of drawing this round 
her to keep the direct rays of the gaslight from falling upon 
her, when a large brown arm and hand suddenly appeared, 



378 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

the hand being clapped heavily upon Mr X.'s shoulder, whilst 
a gruff masculine voice asked him in loud tones, "Are you 
really satisfied ? " 

I have witnessed some strange happenings in connection 
with my investigation of occult matters, but to my dying day 
I shall never forget the look of blank astonishment on Mr X.'s 
face at that moment. 

Quickly recovering himself, however, he at once examined 
the psychic — a little woman, far below the average height, 
having small hands and feet, as we could all see quite clearly — 
and declared that every seal and every knot was unbroken, 
and just as he had left them not sixty seconds before. 

Amongst other entities who materialised that evening was 
a young girl of about eighteen years of age, who stated that 
when she left her earth-body she had been a dancer. 

She came from the spot where the psychic was seated, 
laughing heartily, stating that the hand and arm belonged to 
an old English sailor, who, she said, had been standing with 
her watching the tying up process, and laughing at Mr X.'s 
vain attempt to prevent the phenomena. 

The experiment lasted for nearly an hour, and at its con- 
clusion Mr X. examined the psychic, and once again reported 
that every seal and knot were just as he had left them at the 
commencement of the experiment. 

Mr Bolton also testifies to the fact that one of the psychics 
he employed did not become entranced and would not sit 
apart from the spectators. 

He was perfectly normal during the experiment and when 
a materialised form appeared he would speak to it as it moved 
about the room, and the entity would reply in a clear voice, 
which was distinctly audible not only to the fourteen sitters 
in the room but to two observers who were stationed outside 
the door. 

It will thus be seen that trance is not a " sine qua non " to 
the production of these phenomena, and this fact explains 
how Christ could materialise to Mary Magdalene, the two 
disciples at Emmaus, and to the other disciples, and they 
all see him and converse with him. 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 379 

Describing the dematerialisation of figures which he 
has seen, Mr Bolton says : 

She walked slowly towards him and then dematerialised as 
she often used to do, passing to all appearances through the 
floor. This was always an interesting portion of the experi- 
ment to watch. The feet and ankles would first disappear ; 
then slowly the legs, up to the hips, would sink downwards ; 
next the body up to the neck ; followed — after a few words 
of farewell — by the face, the top of the head remaining for 
about thirty seconds on the surface of the floor, the dazzling 
white of the drapery, in which the head had been draped 
during the appearance of the entity in our midst, showing 
plainly above the dark-coloured carpet. The dematerialisation 
lasted for about a minute and a quarter from first to last, and 
was clearly visible, by artificial light, to all present on every 
occasion. 

On another occasion Mr Bolton and one of the sitters 
were permitted to handle the materialised form. Describ- 
ing this marvellous experience, he says : 

Experiment No. 10 
Place — my house in London. Psychic B, female, aged about 49 

Experimenting with a picked set of sitters in my own room 
(with Sir William Crookes' psychic, Florence Cook, then Mrs 
Corner), the French dancing-girl was standing fully materialised 
from head to foot, barely six feet away from me, three or four 
feet away from the psychic, and directly opposite the gas- 
bracket ; the flame being turned up to its full height, the light 
being only slightly shaded with a piece of yellow paper, in 
order that the direct rays from the gas might be somewhat 
softened before falling upon her, as otherwise her features would 
soon begin to melt and to run, exactly in the way that soft wax 
.will melt in the presence of heat — an extremely painful and 
unpleasant sight to witness, as I know by experience. 

She had been talking to us for five minutes, and showing 
us as usual her hands and arms, feet and legs, as she was 
evidently extremely proud of their beautiful modelling — 
when she turned to me and asked me to leave my seat and 
come and stand beside her. I did this, and she at once moved 



380 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

up quite close to me and rested her little head upon my right 
shoulder. I noticed that she was considerably taller than the 
psychic, then a rather short and stout woman of nearly fifty, 
and the mother of two grown-up daughters. Her complexion 
was beautifully fair, whilst that of the psychic was very dark, 
the hair in each case following the general colouring. Her 
ears were unpierced, while the psychic always wore ear-rings. 
These things satisfied me that the entity and the psychic were 
two absolutely separate beings. 

I very gently passed my right arm completely round the 
entity, and found that I was clasping the thin waist of a young 
girl, which felt both warm and firm to the touch through the 
white drapery with which it was covered. 

She then invited a lady to take her stand beside her, singling 
out one who up to that moment had always candidly admitted 
that she regarded this special psychic as a fraud. 

The lady left her seat, and stood close to the entity, who at 
once rested her head upon the lady's shoulder, permitting her 
to place her arm round the girl's waist ; and a very charming 
picture they made, the lady being dressed in a modern evening 
costume, the girlish form of the entity being clad in flowing 
robes of dazzling whiteness. They stood like this for nearly 
a minute, when we heard the entity ask the lady to turn her 
head round, and to look at the spot where the psychic was 
sitting in deep trance, only about four feet away. 

She did this, and stated that she could see the psychic 
distinctly, her head drooping upon her chest, her arms and 
hands hanging loosely at her sides, and her body clothed in 
black velvet ; for she always insisted on wearing not only a 
black dress during our experiments with her, but black under- 
clothing throughout. 

Speaking of the materialisations of hands (partial 
materialisations) Sir William Crookes says, in the remarkable 
account of his investigations : 

I have seen a luminous cloud visibly condense to the form 
of a hand and carry small objects about. 

Sometimes the hand appears perfectly graceful and natural, 
the flesh apparently as human as that of any in the room. At 
the wrist it becomes hazy and fades off into a luminous cloud. 
To the touch the hand sometimes appears cold, at others 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 381 

warm and lifelike, grasping my own with the firm pressure 
of a friend. 

I have retained one of these hands in my own, firmly resolved 
not to let it escape. There has been no struggle, but it gradu- 
ally seemed to resolve itself into vapour and so faded from 
my grasp. 

These partial materialisations we have had in my vicarage 
at Weston, the hand sometimes terminating at the wrist, 
and once two-thirds up the forearm, where it was felt to 
end. 

These occurrences have always been spontaneous. 
Several times we have had the experience of the hand 
melting away in the grasp. Within the last two months 
(May, June, 1918) we have had several materialisations 
in daylight, all spontaneous, which we have both heard, 
seen and felt, myself, my wife and my daughter Sylvia 
having all come in forcible contact with the materialisation, 
on one occasion it being observed in daylight by three 
of us at one and the same time. 

It has not been my good fortune to sit with the more 
notable psychics for materialisation, such as Florence Cook, 
but I have had two sittings with Mr Potts, the Northumbrian 
psychic. On the first occasion, which was at his own home, 
I thoroughly searched the room and cabinet. The latter 
was a simple affair, merely a curtain suspended across one 
corner of the room. The walls and floor I found solid and 
intact. Myself and wife sat within three feet of the curtain 
in a good light, enabling us to see clearly everything that 
went on. I am positive that no one approached the curtain 
after Mr Potts took his place behind it, yet we saw eight 
forms show themselves, some bearded and taller than the 
psychic, others little children not more than six years of 
age and not half the height of the psychic. None of these 
were recognised by us. 

On another occasion he visited my own home, and sat 
under good test conditions in my own dining-room. On 



382 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

this occasion we saw the white robes * of a tall figure within 
the curtains, and most brilliant manifestations of large 
patches of dazzling white light " as white as snow," f but 
nothing more. Immediately after these manifestations 
the gentlemen present, as the psychic came out of the 
cabinet, had him disrobe himself in their presence, and 
searched both his clothing and his person, but found 
no phosphorus or other chemical, no white muslin, no 
apparatus, or anything else that could possibly have 
produced the appearances seen, nor could we produce 
anything like what we had seen by any means we could 
devise. 

By way of compensation for this lack of opportunity with 
the more notable exponents of materialisation we have been 
favoured with many spontaneous, partial and complete 
materialisations in our own home. These wonderful hap- 
penings have invariably been spontaneous and have occurred 
without a moment's warning (vide Chapter XL). 

It will be noted that the famous naturalist, Alfred Russel 
Wallace, in his description of what took place in his presence 
(page 372) when experimenting with " S lad », mentions that 
the figure was connected to *Sladt by a band of cloudy 
light. This connecting link is sometimes observed, but 
in the more perfect materialisations is not seen. In one 
of the remarkable spontaneous materialisations occurring 
in my own house this " umbilical cord " was a notable 

* No one who has not seen the wonderful white robe often worn 
by spirits at a materialisation can thoroughly understand or realise 
the significance of the Bible accounts such as are contained in the 
following passages : — 

Daniel x. 5 : Behold a certain man clothed in linen. 

Luke xxiv. 4 : Behold two men stood by them in shining garments. 

Acts i. 10 : Two men stood by them in white apparel. 

Rev. iv. 4 : I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white 
raiment. 

t Mark ix. 3 : And his raiment became shining exceeding white as 
snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them. 

Matthew xxviii. 3 : His countenance was like lightning and his 
raiment white as snow. 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 383 

feature, as indeed was the whole manifestation, forming 
an extraordinary experience, as it was a kind of double 
materialisation, unlike anything I have ever heard or read of. 
It occurred in my vicarage in the night of Wednesday, 
5th May 1909. A few days after the birth of my youngest 
daughter, my wife was sleeping in the Red Room and had 
her baby with her. The time was 2.15 a.m., she having 
just previously looked at her watch. 

The room was well lighted by the lamp on the table. 
The nurse in attendance on her was sleeping in the dressing- 
room opening out of the bedroom, and her bed was on the 
other side of the partition from my wife's bed, and thus 
distant from it only a few feet through the open door. 

The nurse was asleep. 

Suddenly my wife saw a ball of light about the size and 
shape of a coco-nut come from behind the portiere curtain 
on the main or outer door of the bedroom. This curtain 
was bulged out from the door itself by dresses hung behind 
it, so that it stood off from the door some six or eight inches. 
The ball of light came out from this space between the door 
and the curtain. It appeared to roll or rotate on its axis 
as it came. When it had emerged about a yard it suddenly 
expanded upwards and developed into a pillar of light as 
high as a man (vide 279, 369). Then the pillar resolved 
itself into the form of a man, who advanced to her bedside. 
At this moment a thin cord or stream of light shot from the 
side of the man and extended itself over the bed, and the 
end of this luminous cord at once began to enlarge and swell 
up into a smaller pillar of light, which then took the form of 
a little child with a kind of frilled cap around its face. 
This little child began to dance all over the bed, all the while 
connected with the man by the thin cord of white light. 
My wife could distinctly feel the little feet of the childish 
figure dancing upon her own feet, legs and knees as it skipped 
about the bed. Thinking for the moment that the man 
had got hold of her baby, she said : " Oh, don't take baby," 



384 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

but the next instant, glancing down at her side, she saw her 
baby lying there secure and unharmed. The other childish 
form still continued to dance about over the bed, and while 
my wife watched it, the man suddenly put his hand on her 
brow and face and pressed her down on to the pillow, 
at the same time saying : " Rest, perfect rest." His face 
was convulsed before the words were uttered, giving the 
impression that a considerable effort had to be made to 
speak. 

On this my wife cried out for the nurse, who was sleeping 
on the other side of the partition, the dressing-room door 
being open, and as soon as she did so the figures of the 
man and child vanished instantly. My wife now asked 
the nurse whether she had heard or seen anything, and the 
nurse said no, but stated that she had had a sensation of 
the bedclothes being dragged tightly down over her. 
Evidently the power and substance for this manifestation 
were largely drawn from her sleeping form. (35o, 368) 

I bring this chapter to a close by a brief account of the 
researches of the eminent scientist and medical man, Baron 
von Schrenck-Notzing, of Munich, one of the greatest 
authorities in Germany. He, together with a number of 
other scientists, conducted, during the years 1909-1913, an 
elaborate series of experiments under the strictest test 
conditions rendered possible by the presence of several 
medical men. 

The results of their investigations were published by 
the Baron in a large volume, profusely illustrated by 
photographs and sketches, entitled Materialisations 
Phcenomene. The outbreak of the war prevented this 
remarkable volume being published in this country, as it 
certainly will be later, when it will be seen how triumphantly 
the observations of Sir William Crookes and all others who 
have testified to the reality of these things are vindicated. 
The two psychics experimented with were Mademoiselles 
Marthe Berand, aged twenty-three, and Stanislawa P , 



THE EVIDENCE OF MATERIALISATION 385 

aged nineteen, both of them, in the cause of science 
and this important investigation, voluntarily, and without 
fee or reward of any kind, submitting to the most searching 
personal examination and the most stringent tests, sitting 
in a good light and freely permitting the fullest examination 
by the medical men present. Two hundred photographs 
were taken and a cinematographic record, and on one occa- 
sion no less than nine cameras were set at different angles, 
which were simultaneously exposed on Mademoiselle Marthe. 

These photographs show the atmoplasma (vapour-like sub- 
stance) forming about the head of the psychic like a cloud, 
and also the pachyplasma (dough-like substance), issuing 
in (1) narrow and wide strips ; (2) large masses ; (3) slender 
cords closely resembling the human umbilical cord. 

It is shown issuing in masses from the top, sides and back 
of the psychic's head and at times enveloping the head, 
from the mouth in bands and streams, and from the shoulders 
in large masses, from the bust and abdomen generally 
working its way downwards by force of gravity, but 
frequently upwards with a sinuous motion to the mouth or 
suspending itself from the bust. 

Portions of the pachyplasma were obtained in metal 
boxes and submitted to microscopical examination. On 
one occasion : > 

A long strip of the substance glided with a sinuous move- 
ment from the mouth of the psychic over her left forearm 
and deposited a small fragment of the substance in the box. 
Quick as lightning the remainder of the substance flies back 
to the psychic. This was repeated again and again, and by 
the fifth attempt the substance filled the box, falling in spirals 
by force of gravity. 

A substance akin to this pachyplasma has on several 
occasions been observed by Dr Crawford {vide 273) under 
the table and about the psychic's feet when experimenting 
with Miss Kathleen Golligher (Reality of Psychic Phenomena, 
page 224). 
2 B 



386 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

The Baron's researches have just been confirmed by 
similar ones undertaken by Dr Gustave Geley (Laureate of 
the French Medical Faculty) who has recently published an 
illustrated account of his researches in the Annates des 
Sciences Psychiques (November, 1918 — March, 1919). As 
the result of extended and careful tests with the psychic 

Eva C , who has been under close investigation for 

some years, he affirms 

that he has often witnessed the whole process of supernormal 
materialisation with the psychic Eva, and has seen and touched 
the materialisation and confirmed his experiences by registering 
instruments, and by photography, so that he has no longer any 
doubt of the reality of his experiences. He testifies to the fact 
that a substance, which is at first amorphous, issues, or ex- 
teriorises itself, from the body of the psychic, and that this 
substance assumes various forms in obedience to a directing 
intelligence. Summing up the result of his investigations he 
says that the facts necessitate " the complete overthrow of 
materialistic physiology," and that " the materialistic con- 
ception of the universe and of the individual is false, and cannot 
be reconciled with our present biological knowledge." 

It seems probable that the portions of the body in which 
this wonderful substance is formed are the great nerve 
centres, the solar plexus, the pineal gland, the brain and 
spine, and that it issues from the orifices in the body 
nearest to these nerve centres. 

In conclusion — a careful examination and full considera- 
tion of the various accounts of the appearances of the Christ 
after his crucifixion during the "great forty days," shows 
that they are records of the materialisations of Christ's 
spiritual body, and not of the reappearance of his mortal 
body. It is impossible for anyone conversant with, and ex- 
perienced in, the facts set forth in this chapter to hold any 
other conviction or belief; even as it was impossible for 
Galileo, after careful telescopic study, to doubt the exist- 
ence of the satellites of Jupiter or the rotation of the sun 
about its own axis. 



XXI 

THE EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 

The know-nothings call me " the frog's dancing- master," yet I 
know that I have discovered one of the greatest forces in nature. — 
Galvani. 

We are still so far from understanding all the agents in nature 
and their different modes of action that it would display very little 
of the spirit of philosophy to deny the existence of phenomena only 
because they are inexplicable in the actual conditions of our know- 
ledge. — Laplace. 

It is the height of folly for any man to ridicule or lightly dismiss 
a subject on which he is either ill-informed, or of which he has had 
no personal experience. — Anon. 

TWO and a half years ago, when I had the privilege 
of taking a psychic photograph and scientifically 
proving the reality of clairvoyance, like Galvani I 
was made the sport of the would-be wits and know-nothings 
of the day. Yet with Galvani I can say that I was privileged 
on that occasion to make a contribution to the sum total 
of human knowledge. 

This remarkable experience occurred on the 20th December 
1915, and is fully set forth in an affidavit, attested in the 
presence of a Commissioner for Oaths, by myself and the 
other witnesses : 

In the Matter of a Remarkable Photograph Produced 
at Weston Vicarage, near Otley, in the County of 
York 

We, Charles Lakeman Tweedale, of Weston Vicarage, Otley, 
in the County of York, Clerk in Holy Orders, Margaret Eleanor 
Tweedale, the wife of Charles Lakeman Tweedale, and Herschel 
Burnett Tweedale, the son of Charles Lakeman Tweedale, 
both of Weston Vicarage aforesaid, jointly and severally make 
oath and say as follows : 

Firstly. I, the said Margaret Eleanor Tweedale, for myself 
say that on the 20th December 191 5, about one-thirty in the 
afternoon, my husband, my son, and myself were at lunch in 
the morning-room, when suddenly I saw the apparition of a 
man, with a full head of hair and a beard, standing on the left- 

387 



388 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

hand side of my son, and in close proximity to the piano in 
the said room. I immediately cried out to my husband and 
my son that the figure was so standing. I directed their atten- 
tion to the figure, but they could not see it. My husband 
hastily left the room and brought in his camera, and took a 
photograph of the position where I still saw the semblance of 
a man. I produce the exhibit marked A, which is a true copy 
of the negative taken by my husband, showing the figure of 
the bearded man. 

Secondly. I, the said Charles Lakeman Tweedale, for myself 
say that on the 20th December 1915, I was present in the 
morning-room of Weston Vicarage, along with my wife and son 
Herschel, and that my wife drew my attention to a figure which 
she saw in the room standing by my son's side, and although I 
could not distingush it I immediately brought in my camera 
and took a photograph of the position where my wife still ad- 
hered that she saw the figure. The photograph marked as the 
exhibit A is a true copy of the resulting negative. I swear 
that the negative, which I personally developed, was in no way 
tampered with, nor did the plate leave my possession until it 
was developed. 

Thirdly. I, Herschel Burnett Tweedale, for myself say that 
I was present in the morning-room at Weston Vicarage aforesaid 
on the 20th December 1915, about 1.30 p.m., when my mother 
suddenly drew my father's and my attention to the figure of a 
man which she saw standing on my left-hand side. Along with 
my father I was unable to see the figure which my mother said 
she saw. My father immediately left the room and brought in 
his camera, and exposed a plate on the position occupied by 
the figure as seen by my mother. The exhibit marked A is a 
true copy of the resulting negative. No other person was 
present in the room during the time the picture was taken 
except our three selves. 
Sworn this 27th day of February, 191 6, before me, 

Joseph Wilson, 
A Commissioner to Administer 
Oaths in the Supreme Court of 
Judicature in England. 

Charles Lakeman Tweedale 
Margaret E. Tweedale. 
Herschel B. Tweedale. 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 389 

A print from the negative, signed by the three witnesses 
and the solicitor, is attached to the affidavit, and is the one 
referred to as " the exhibit marked A." 

My wife described the man as a little man, and said that 
the top of his head appeared to be about on a level with 
my son's shoulder. She saw the figure move and pass 
round the corner of the table during the time I was fetching 
the camera. My wife and son continued sitting at the 
table during the exposure. The photograph shows my 
son seated, in addition to the figure of the man. 

The plate was developed almost immediately after the 
exposure was made, and did not go out of my possession 
meanwhile. 

The plate was taken from a new box of quarter-plates, 
and had not been previously exposed. 

No person of similar appearance has ever been photo- 
graphed by me, or has ever entered Weston Vicarage during 
the time I have lived in it. 

Neither I, my wife, nor son recognise the figure shown 
in the photo. 

The camera was in perfect order and no image of this 
kind shows up on plates exposed in the same camera 
shortly before and after this remarkable photograph was 
taken, conclusively proving that the figure is not formed 
by a " pinhole." 

No picture of a similar figure hangs on the walls, nor do 
we possess one. 

None of us were thinking of such a figure, or of psychic 
photography, at the time of its apparition. 

The gelatine film of the negative is entirely free from 
finger prints or any traces of melting or frilling and is 
perfectly homogeneous throughout, and was naturally 
dried in the air. Nothing was accidentally interposed 
during the exposure, nor did any of us interpose ourselves 
or move from our places during that time. There were no 
flowers, fronds or foliage on the table. 



390 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

The ground being thus thoroughly cleared we are faced 
with the fact that my wife clairvoyantly saw the figure of 
a man, with a good head of hair and a beard, which figure 
neither I nor my son could see. 

On a camera being brought, and a sensitive plate exposed 
on the spot where the figure was seen by the clairvoyant, 
a photograph showing a man with abundant hair and a 
flowing beard was obtained, which photograph was recog- 
nised by my wife, the clairvoyant, as being like the man 
she saw. 

The camera is an optical and mechanical apparatus 
devoid of imagination, which cannot be hallucinated. 
Thus the reality of the clairvoyant vision is photographic- 
ally and scientifically proved. 

And now for the last and not the least significant fact : 
the man's head in the photo completely hides that part oj 
the piano which lies behind it, conclusively proving that the 
man had a definite objectivity, although invisible to the 
normal vision of myself and my son (vide 220). 

This photograph was reproduced in The Psychic Gazette 
for April 1916, also very finely reproduced by Mr Herbert 
Carrington in Azoth, and also by Professor Coates in his 
book, Seeing the Invisible (Fowler & Co.). Monsieur 
Camille Flammarion, the French astronomer, was also 
deeply interested in it, and a full account appeared in the 
Annates des Sciences Psychiques for July, 1916. 

Thinking that the fact that a figure described by my 
wife in detail as visible to her, but invisible to myself and 
my son, should at the same time be registered by the 
photographic plate, was an event of the deepest interest 
and significance, I sent the account of it, with prints from 
the negative, to the Society for Psychical Research. To 
my astonishment, their Council showed not the slightest 
appreciation of, or interest in, the experience ; being appar- 
ently influenced by the fact that a member of the Society, 
devoid of any practical knowledge or experience of the 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 391 

subject, had written a paper against it years before. This 
unscientific attitude of the S.P.R. is greatly to be deplored. 
Certain it is that the Society will regret it at no distant 
date, and just as it had to rehabilitate Eusapia Paladino 
and acknowledge the genuineness of her psychic powers 
(vide Fielding, Baggally and Carrington's Report, Pro- 
ceedings S.P.R. , vol. xxiii.), after having believed in 1895 
that everything connected with her was fraudulent, so 
will it infallibly have to give a belated acknowledgment 
of the genuineness and significance of these psychic photos. 
But although the Society, as a body, would not acknow- 
ledge my photographic experience, some of its leading 
members did and were greatly interested. Mr W. W. 
Baggally, one of the members of the Council and one of 
their principal investigators, examined the negative and 
prints at my house on 8th September 1916, and, in the 
presence of witnesses, said that he could see the face of 
the man distinctly and also could see the hair of the beard, 
while Sir William Barrett, at one time President of the 
Society, in a letter under date 31st August 1916, says that 
the photo "shows the head clearly and is very striking." 
In a previous letter he describes it as "a wonderful 
photograph." 

The face is perfectly distinct to ordinary vision, and is 
that of a handsome elderly man with a beard and flowing 
locks. 

The negative has been examined by several professional 
photographers as well as by Mr W. W. Baggally of the 
S.P.R., and all testify to the fact that the image is as 
definitely in the film on the glass plate as are the images 
of the pictures on the wall. Personally, I know this 
experience to be a true one. I am not more certain of 
any experience in my life than I am of this, and I 
would stake all I possess on the genuineness of this 
photograph. 

Psychic photography — by which for the purposes of 



392 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

this chapter is meant the photographing of spirit entities 
invisible to normal human vision — is a comparatively 
modern experience, dating back to the early sixties, when a 
Mr Mumler, of Boston, in 1861 obtained his first psychic 
photograph. He was an engraver by profession. Very 
many psychic photographs were obtained by him, among 
the most famous being that of President Lincoln, obtained 
by Mrs Lincoln (who went incognito, giving the name of 
Mrs Tyndall and being closely veiled up to the time of the 
photo being taken). Mumler did not know who she was. 
When a print was taken from the plate Mumler recognised 
the spirit form as that of the President and asked her if she 
recognised it. She replied that she did. Another lady 
present said : " Why, it looks like President Lincoln ! " 
Mrs Lincoln said : " Yes, it does. I am his widow." The 
picture shows Mrs Lincoln in a black dress, with the figure 
of the President standing behind her with his hands over 
her shoulder and extending down on to her bosom. The 
attitude is one of affectionate regard, very significant. 
The black dress of Mrs Lincoln completely hides the lower 
part of the spirit figure where it intersects it, but the hands 
of the spirit are seen clearly projected upon her dress and 
extending down the bust. In other words, the spirit's 
hands are in front of Mrs Lincoln and the spirit body 
behind her (vide Photographing the Invisible, page 23). 

Many practical photographers investigated Mumler but 
were never able to discover any fraud on his part. One 
of them, Mr Guay, says : 

Having been permitted by Mr Mumler every facility, I went 
through the whole process of selecting, cleaning, preparing, 
coating, silvering and putting into the slide the glass plate, 
never taking off my eyes and not allowing Mr M. to touch the 
glass until it had gone through the whole operation. The 
result was that there came upon the glass a picture of myself, 
and to my utter astonishment — having previously examined 
every crack and corner, the plate-holder, camera, box, tube, 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 393 

and the inside of the bath — -another portrait. Having since 
continued my investigation as described above, and received 
even more perfect results than on the first trial, I have been 
obliged to endorse their legitimacy. 

Many other practical photographers were satisfied as to 
the genuineness of his claims, among whom were Silver 
and Gurney, and also that eminent portrait photographer, 
William Black, of Boston, the inventor of the acid nitrate 
bath ; and some obtained recognised spirit photographs 
when they were allowed to have all their own way with 
the studio and apparatus, Mumler taking no part in the 
proceedings, save the fact of his presence. A malicious 
prosecution was brought against him, and the trial lasted 
several days, but, so strong was the evidence of practical 
photographers who had tested Mumler, and of leading 
citizens who had received identified portraits of deceased 
relatives and friends on the plates taken by him, that 
Judge Dowling decided that the prosecution had not made 
out a case that could even go before the jury, and discharged 
Mumler. The evidence in favour of psychic photography 
which was produced at this trial was overwhelming. 

I do not propose in these pages to enter fully into the 
history of psychic photography, but to confine myself to 
the more interesting cases, and more especially to those 
occurring comparatively recently. 

Those who wish to peruse the whole story cannot do better 
than obtain Professor Coates' most excellent work, Photo- 
graphing the Invisible* which gives a full account, and it is 
illustrated by ninety photographs of remarkable interest. 
Briefly mentioning the names of Hudson, the first psychic 
photographer in this country, Parke, Reeves, Duguid, Bours- 
nell, Wyllie, Martin, Hope, and Dr T. D'Aute Hooper as 
names, more prominently associated with this form of psychic 

* Photographing the Invisible, by James Coates, Ph.D., F.A.S. 
399 pp. 8vo. Fowler & Co., Ludgate Circus. 



394 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

manifestation, I propose now to give accounts of a number 
of evidential cases including both tests by photographers 
and also instances of recognised pictures obtained through 
the power of these and other psychics. The first of these 
is from The Cincinnati Enquirer, and is as follows : — 

Mr J. J. Hartman has been producing spirit pictures at No. 
ioo West Fourth Street. He has been bitterly denounced as 
a fraud and trickster. Last week he published a card that on 
Saturday rnorning, December 25th (1876), he would give a free 
public investigation addressed to the public generally and to 
photographers especially, stating that he would place all 
arrangements in the hands of those making the investigation, 
they to choose the room, bring their own marked plates, furnish 
their own camera, chemicals, in fact everything, Hartman 
simply asking to manipulate the plates in the presence of 
practical photographers to show that he used no fraud or 
trickery. Christmas morning came bright and cheerful and 
found sixteen gentlemen, five of them practical photographers 
of this city, assembled at his rooms. Putting the question to 
the vote it was decided to adjourn to the photographic gallery 
of Mr V. Cutter, of No. 28 West Fourth Street, Mr Cutter being 
an expert in detecting the "spirit picture trickery," and as 
Mr Hartman had never been in his gallery he would be at a 
double disadvantage of being in a strange room and surrounded 
by sceptics and practical men, quick to detect fraud. 

The party duly adjourned to Mr Cutter's studio, and 
several experiments were duly made. Failure after failure 
was recorded, the sceptics were jubilant, and the practical 
photographers pretty confident that now at last this spirit 
photo humbug was in a fair way to be shown up, when, 
at the exposure of the last plate, Dr Morrow being the sitter, 
a striking and unmistakable picture of a young woman 
appeared, half hiding the figure of Dr Morrow seated upon 
the chair. The report goes on to state : 

Hartman never touched the plates or entered the dark chamber 
during their manipulation. All agree that Mr Hartman did 
not and could not, under the circumstances, of never touching 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 395 

the plate or entering the dark room, produce the spirit picture 
by fraud or trickery. How came it there ? All finally agreed 
to sign the following certificate : — 

We, the undersigned, having taken part in the public in- 
vestigation of "spirit photography" given by Mr J. J. Hart- 
man hereby certify that we have closely examined and watched 
the manipulations of our own marked plates through all the 
various workings in and out of the dark room, and have been 
unable to discover any sign of fraud or trickery on the part of 
Mr J. J. Hartman. 

And we further certify that during the last sitting, when the 
result was obtained, Mr J.J. Hartman did not handle the plate 
or enter the dark room at any time. 

J. Slatter C. H. Nurhman 

V. Cutter J. P. Weckman 

F. T. Moreland T. Temple 

(all practical photographers) 
E. Saunders Wm. Warrington 

Joseph Kinsey Benjamin E. Hopkins 

G. A. Carnshan Wm. Sullivan 
James P. Geppert D. V. Morrow, M.D. 
E. Hopkins Robert Leslie 

Many practical photographers have had to acknowledge 
a like defeat. 

The objection has been made that these photographs 
should be taken by men who are known as photographic 
experts. Sir William Crookes and Professor Richet might 
fairly well claim to be included in this description, but a 
complete answer to this objection is to be found in the 
published experiments of Mr Trail Taylor, editor of The 
British Journal of Photography, and in his day one of the 
very foremost experts in the photographic art. In an 
article published in The British Journal of Photography 
for 17th March 1893, he there gave the following account 
of his experiences : — 

For several years I have had a strong desire to ascertain 
by personal investigation the amount of truth in the ever- 



396 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

recurring allegation that figures, other than those visionally 
present in the room, appeared on the sensitive plate. The diffi- 
culty was to get hold of a suitable person to experiment with. 
He or she may not be a photographer, but must be present on 
each occasion of trial. Like the chemical principle known as 
catalysis they merely act by their presence. Such a one is 
Mr Duguid, of Glasgow, in whose presence psychic photographs 
have long been alleged to be obtained. 

He was lately in London on a visit, and a mutual friend 
got him to consent to extend his stay in order that I might 
try to get a psychic photograph under test conditions. To 
this he willingly agreed. My conditions were exceedingly 
simple, were courteously expressed to the host, and entirely 
acquiesced in. They were that for the nonce I would assume 
them all to be tricksters, and, to guard against fraud, should 
use my own camera and unopened packages of dry plates pur- 
chased from dealers of repute, and that I should be excused 
from allowing a plate to go out of my own hand until after 
development, unless I felt otherwise disposed, but that, as I 
was to treat them as under suspicion, so they must treat me, 
and that every act I performed must be in the presence of two 
witnesses, and I would dictate all the conditions of operation. 

All this I was told they wished me very strongly to do, as 
they desired to know the truth and the truth only. There 
were present, during one or other of the evenings when the 
trials were made, representatives of various schools of thought, 
including a clergyman of the Church of England, a practitioner 
of the healing art who is a fellow of two learned societies, a 
gentleman who graduated in the Hall of Science in the days 
of the late Charles Bradlaugh, some two extremely hard- 
headed Glasgow merchants, gentlemen of commercial eminence 
and probity, our host, his wife, Mr Duguid, and myself. Dr G. 
was the first sitter, and, for a reason known only to myself, I 
used a monocular camera. I myself took a plate out of a 
packet just previously ripped up under the surveillance of 
my two detectives. I placed the slide in my pocket, and 
exposed it by magnesium ribbon which I held in my own hand 
keeping one eye, as it were, on the sitter and the other on the 
camera. There was no background. I myself took the plate 
from the dark slide and, under the eyes of the two detectives, 
placed it in a developing dish. Between the camera and the 
sitter a female figure was developed, rather in a more pronounced 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 397 

form than that of the sitter. The lens was a portrait one of 
short focus. The figure, being somewhat in front of the sitter, 
was proportionately large in dimensions. I submit this picture. 
It is, as you see, a lady. I do not recognise her or any of the 
other figures I obtained as like anyone I know, and from my 
point of view, that of a mere investigator and experimentalist, 
not caring whether the psychic subject were embodied or dis- 
embodied. 

Many experiments of like nature followed ; on some plates 
were abnormal appearances, on others none. All this time 
Mr D., during the exposure of the plates, was quite inactive. 
After one trial which had proved successful, I asked him how 
he felt and what he had been thinking of during the exposure. 
He replied that his thoughts had been mainly concentrated 
upon his chances of securing a corner seat in a smoking carriage 
that night from Euston to Glasgow. 

How the Psychic Figures behaved 
If the precautions I took during all the several experiments, 
such as those recorded, are by any of you thought to have 
been imperfect or incomplete, I pray you to point them out. 

In some of them I relaxed my conditions to the extent of 
getting one of those present to lift out from the dark slide the 
exposed plate and transfer it to the developing dish held by 
myself, or to lift a plate from the manufacturer's package into 
the dark slide held in my own hand, this being done under my 
own eye, which was upon it all the time ; but this did not seem 
to interfere with the average on-going of the experiments. 

The psychic figures behaved badly. Some were in focus, 
others not so ; some were lighted from the right, while the 
sitter was so from the left ; some were comely, as the dame I 
shall show on the screen, others not so. Some monopolised 
the major portion of the plate, quite obliterating the material 
sitters ; others were as if a badly vignetted portrait were held 
up behind the sitter. But here is the point ; not one of these 
figures which came out so strongly in the negative was visible 
in any form or shape to me during the time of exposure in the 
camera, and I vouch in the strongest manner for the fact that 
no one whatever had an opportunity of tampering with any 
plate anterior to its being placed in the dark slide or immediately 
preceding development. Pictorially they are vile, but how 
came they there ? 



398 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

There is only one answer that will satisfy the various 
phenomena observed in connection with the majority of 
these psychic pictures, and that is " through the action 
of discarnate spiritual beings." 

Here is another testimony from Mr Trail Taylor, which 
had previously appeared in The British Journal oj Photog- 
raphy for August, 1873, and which is summarised by Mr 
Coates in Photographing the Invisible, page 54 : 

A gentleman who went to Mr Hudson obtained a spirit 
photograph, and, having recognised the spirit portrait, he 
published an account of it ; and, being much elated, he showed 
it to Mr John Beattie, of Clifton, Bristol, an eminent pro- 
fessional photographer. That gentleman pronounced it to 
be a fraud, and Mr Hudson got into much disfavour in conse- 
quence. In June 1873 a gentleman called on Hudson to have 
sittings. He wished to go through all the processes of photog- 
raphy himself, and to this Mr Hudson consented. In a few 
days afterwards Mr Hudson received a letter signed " John 
Bruce Beattie," saying that the spirit picture was that of a 
nephew, and that he had sent it to the mother for identifica- 
tion. He subsequently sent a long account of the whole 
procedure to The British journal of Photography , and as a 
result he obtained several portraits, by which he was con- 
vinced, in addition to his experience elsewhere, of 

" the possibility of photographing forms invisible to ordinary 
eyesight, and forms which indicate the presence of unseen, in- 
telligent beings of some sort controlling the forms so photo- 
graphed. " 

Further than this I do not propose to quote the long article. 
I will, however, reproduce the comments of Mr J. Trail Taylor, 
then the editor of that journal. Both Mr Beattie's article and 
Mr Taylor's remarks appeared in the issue for August 1873. 
The editor says : 

" The main facts once admitted, the question arises : By 
what means are these figures formed upon the collodion film ? 
The first impulse is to attribute it to a double exposure on the 
part of Hudson, the photographer. But here a difficulty inter- 
poses — Mr Hudson need not be present at all ; indeed, it is 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 399 

but an act of justice to that gentleman to say that when we 
were trying experiments in his studio to determine the truth 
of the ' so-called spirit photography,' we obtained entire posses- 
sion of his dark room, employed our own collodion and plates, 
and at no time during the preparation, exposure or develop- 
ment of the pictures was Mr Hudson within ten feet of the 
camera, or the dark room. Appearances of an abnormal kind 
did certainly show on several plates, by whatever means they 
were caused. The photographer had nothing whatever to do 
with their production. Neither will the ' previously used 
plate ' theory apply in this case, for the plates were quite new, 
and were obtained a few hours before they were used ; and 
apart from the fact of their never having been out of our 
possession, the package was only undone just before the opera- 
tions were commenced." 



Mr Trail Taylor steadily maintained that these pictures 
were genuine, and this afterwards developed into the con- 
viction that recognised pictures of the departed dead had 
been obtained. 

Here is the sworn testimony of another practical 
photographer, Mr Robert Whiteford, sole partner of the 
firm of Messrs John Adamson & Son, Marine and Portrait 
Photographers, Rothesay, whose firm has carried on business 
for over half-a-century. 

Mr Whiteford was wholly sceptical about psychic photog- 
raphy. Here is his report {Photographing the Invisible, 
page 250) : 

23 Argyle Street, Rothesay, 
Oct. 22, 1909. 

I, Robert Whiteford, photographer, Rothesay, solemnly and 
sincerely declare I entered on this investigation on the under- 
standing that I should have a free hand to make my own con- 
ditions, and this was agreed to. 

I inspected a modern outdoor camera by Kodak Limited, 
which Mr Wyllie had, and which he used for outdoor work. 
I took away a double dark slide belonging to it and filled it 
with two plates from a box supplied by Mr Meldrum, which 



400 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

was opened by me in my own studio. I marked the plates 
with my initials and the date. I again examined the camera 
thoroughly, and neither in it nor in nor about the lens was there 
anything out of the way. Mr Wyllie and I entered the dark 
room, where he asked me ; " Is the light satisfactory?" I said : 
" No." He then desired me to turn up the light to suit myself. 

This I did, at the same time opening the slide and showing 
him the plates. Closing one shutter and leaving the other 
open, I held the dark slide with one of the plates uppermost 
for Mr Wyllie to magnetise, but the dark slide with the plates 
was never out of my hands or my sight. Mr Wyllie proceeded 
to do what he called magnetising the plate. I then closed the 
shutter and went into the operating room, where I was joined 
by Professor Coates. I again examined the camera and lens, 
and posed Mr Wyllie and focused him, and set the shutter of 
the camera ready for exposure. Mr Wyllie then rose and I 
took his place as subject, and Mr Wyllie exposed the plate for 
about sixteen seconds. I then rose, closed the slide, took it 
out of the camera and posed Professor Coates. When finished, 
I took away the dark slide to our studio in Rothesay. 

Upon developing the plates I found, to my astonishment, 
what is called a " psychic extra " on my own plate, apparently 
that of an old woman. On Mr Coates' plate there was nothing 
save himself as subject. I entered into this matter with an 
open mind, with neither knowledge of the subject as claimed 
by some nor the slightest faith in it. In fact, as to the spirit 
photos which I have seen, I have put them down as " faked "■ 
pictures or double exposures. The test picture taken of me 
is not and could not be a double exposure. 

I went into the test as a photographer with my eyes open, 
and thoroughly on the alert to detect fraud. / found none. 
Mr Wyllie never refused to submit to any test conditions which 
my knowledge of photography could put him to. Nothing 
would have given me greater pleasure, had I detected fraud of 
any description, than to expose it. I claim this photograph 
to be a genuine psychic photograph. 

Robert Whiteford. 

Sworn at Rothesay in the County of Bute this 22nd 
day of October, Nineteen hundred and nine, before me, 

Donald Grant, Solicitor in Rothesay, 
Notary Public. 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 401 

Mr Whitford was also careful to see that nothing was 
concealed in Mr Wyllie's hands. Mr Wyllie also only 
" magnetised " one plate in the slide. Mr Whiteford, on 
his way to the camera, reversed or turned the slide over, 
thus using the unmagnetised plate — i.e. the one over which 
Mr Wyllie had not placed his hand — for his own picture. 
It was on this plate that the " extra " came, while " the 
magnetised " plate exposed on Mr Coates had no extra 
upon it. 

On another occasion Mr Wyllie's psychic powers were 
tested by a committee of practical photographers in Glasgow 
and Rothesay {Photographing the Invisible, page 253) : 

Report of Glasgow Association Test Committee 

The Glasgow Association approached Mr Wyllie for a test 
sitting, stipulating that a camera, plates, and slides other than 
those of Mr Wyllie should be used. 

Mr Wyllie, recognising the purpose of this arrangement, 
readily acceded to the request. Two test sittings, however, 
were held, one in Rothesay on 9th October, and the other in 
Glasgow on 23rd October, and both, considering the stringent 
nature of the tests and conditions, and also taking into account 
the adverse atmospheric conditions and the natural nervous 
tension of the medium and sitters, were eminently successful 
and satisfactory. 

Every precaution was taken that experience could suggest. 
The test committee consisted of expert photographers, chiefly 
directed by Mr H. H. Thomson, the Association's treasurer — 
a lecturer on photography of twenty-five years' experience, and 
a frequent prize-winner in open photo competitions. Other 
members were Mr Richard Thomson, vice-president ; Mr John 
Sclator, financial secretary ; Mr Roehead, and myself. Full 
reports were independently given by each member of the 
committee and a synopsis made. 

The camera used was Mr H. H. Thomson's half-plate teak- 
wood camera, fitted for the Mackenzie-Wishart patent slide, 
with envelopes for the same. The plates were purchased at 
the nearest chemist's twenty minutes before the sitting. Two 
of the committee entered the chemist's dark room, and filled 
up eight plates in the slides. 

2C 



402 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

At Rothesay the committee were introduced to Mr Wyllie 
by Mr James Coates in Glenbeg House, and the second sitting 
took place in Mr Wyllie 's apartments in Glasgow. 

The process adopted was simple. Each sitter entered the 
dark room separately with the psychic, and the sitter carried 
the slide, which never left his possession. The psychic took 
hold of the opposite corners to the sitter, and held it there for 
a short time. Presently the psychic asked the sitter to draw 
out the slide, and placed his left hand below the slide and his 
right hand arched over the open plate. After some minutes a 
series of raps or percussion sounds were heard below the wooden 
slide, and this signal being given, the sitter was requested to 
close the slide and place it in the camera. Mr Wyllie's hands 
were examined frequently. No phosphorescent or other sus- 
picious appearance was observed by any of the committee, who 
were specially instructed to use their keenest faculties of ob- 
servation. Before development, the plates were examined 
minutely to detect any markings of the gelatinous surface. 
None were discovered. 

Each member of the committee went through this part of 
the test process. All the exposures in the camera (with one 
exception, when he himself sat) were made by Mr H. H. 
Thomson. Mr Wyllie merely held his hand above the camera 
and gave instructions as to the period of exposure. 

After the plates were exposed they were immediately placed 
in the camera bag and taken away by the committee for de- 
velopment in a specially fitted-up room in Ebenezer Church, 
Glasgow. All the committee were present and watched all 
the stages of development. The following is the result : 

Rothesay Test Sitting 

First plate developed — Mr R. Thomson, sitter. Small face 
on right arm. 

Second plate — Mr Roehead, sitter. Small figure in centre 
of body. 

Third plate — Mr H. H. Thomson, sitter. Large face over 
sitter's ; also one in centre of body, and a symbol. 

Fourth and fifth plates — blank. 

Glasgow Test Sitting 
First plate developed — Mr Young, sitter. Bouquet of large 
lilies near region of heart, probably symbolical. 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 403 

Second plate — Mr R. Thomson, sitter. Large face showing 
on left side and arm. 

Third and fourth plates — Blank, or faint markings too 
indistinct to be mentioned as results. 

These psychic " extras " obtained under such conditions of 
control sufficiently testify to the highly developed powers of 
Mr Wyllie as a psychic photographer. 

The test committee unhesitatingly and unanimously testify 
to Mr Wyllie 's marked and convincing psychic power. 

(Signed) Geo. P. Young. 
R. Thomson. 
H. H. Thomson. 



I will now present some of the evidence given by the Rev. 
Charles Hall Cook, another cleric who has borne witness 
to these things in the United States. His investigation 
of psychic photography extends over several years, and 
has been brought before the American Society for Psychical 
Research, by whom his experiences have been published in 
vol. x. of the journal (January, 1916) profusely illustrated 
by first-class reproductions of the original photographs. 
He says : 

In the summer of 1901 I conducted a series of twelve ex- 
periments in psychic photography with Mr Edward Wyllie, 
507^ South Spring Street, Los Angeles, Cal., U.S.A. Mr 
Wyllie granted me the use of his gallery, dark room, camera, 
and all accessories, and unhesitatingly complied with all con- 
ditions I prescribed — all this gratis on the part of Mr Wyllie. 
The photographic 4x5 plates I myself provided, being a box 
purchased from a regular dealer for the trade. This box of 
plates was always kept either in my coat pocket or inaccessible 
except to myself. The developing was done at different galleries 
except in three instances, when Mr Wyllie assisted by my 
request, but efficient precaution was taken to prevent the 
possibility of exchanging plates. 

Before every trial, I made a thorough examination of Mr 
Wyllie's camera, lens, plate-holder, background, and all 
accessories. I made no arrangement or engagement with 



404 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Mr Wyllie at any time for a succeeding experiment ; in fact, 
I did not know whether I should make another. 

Nine of the twelve experiments were successful — i.e. invis- 
ible faces, forms, and other phenomenal effects appeared upon 
the plates besides the sitter. 

In the first two successful experiments, June 25 and 26, 
Mr J. H. Disler, a capable investigator and experienced photog- 
rapher, assisted me. Mr Disler and I made a most critical 
and thorough examination of Mr Wyllie 's camera, lens, plate- 
holder, background, and all accessories. Mr Wyllie at no time 
came in contact with them, but stood at one side as a spectator, 
in the custody of special witnesses. On one plate there was 
the appearance of a " bright spot," or " spot of light " resem- 
bling a cube-shaped diamond, near the elbow of my right arm, 
emitting rays of light in lateral directions. On the other plate 
there was a young girl's face somewhat blurred, but plainly 
visible on the upper part of my vest. The forehead appeared 
to be under my collar, and just above it was an object like a 
star. This plate was developed by Mr Disler, the photographer, 
in company with Dr Cook, Mumsey's Photographic Stores, 
Broadway, Los Angeles, immediately after exposure. The 
next experiment was made on June 27, 1901, at 11 a.m. 
Mr Wyllie focused the picture and capped and uncapped the 
lens. The plate-holder was not out of my sight a single instant. 
In the dark room my observations were critical. My attention 
was tensely alert that nothing escaped my notice. I watched 
the developing process, and saw coming out on the plate an 
object or face before the face of the sitter became visible. 
It became more clearly defined as the developing process was 
nearing completion. 

Returning to the gallery room, as Mr Wyllie held the negative 
up before the window, I saw on it a face that was very distinct, 
even more so than my own. Comparing it with that of the 
preceding experiment, we saw that it was the same face that 
had appeared upon the plate the day before. It covered my 
left shoulder, extended upon my breast, and was larger and 
much more distinct than the first attempt, with additional 
accompaniments, flowing and wavy hair, encircled with a halo 
or luminous radiance, star-shaped flower or lily in the hair, 
just above the forehead, and symbolic representations of a 
cross and heart below the face. 

This face I recognised as that of the young lady or girl whom 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 405 

I first met in the month of September of the year 1866, as a 
student of Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio. We were 
classmates at that institution, and passed two years of student 
life together. Her home was at Higginsport, on the banks of 
the Ohio, twenty miles above my old home. She passed into 
the other life about four years after the short period of our 
student life together, that is, in 1873. The name is Flora 
Loudon. 

This I made the subject of an affidavit on June 30, 1900. 
Four years afterwards I met in Los Angeles a visitor, a stranger 
just come to the city whom I learned later was a well-known 
lawyer. He proved to be a relation of Flora Loudon. I 
quote his testimony, given under the seal of legal authority. 



State of California, 
County of Los Angeles. 

William Loudon, being first duly sworn, deposes : 

Being in Los Angeles, Cal., about the 7th of May 1905, as 
an idle visitor, I chanced to see a posted handbill announcing 
that Dr Cook would deliver a lecture that evening on " Psychical 
Research." 

I had never up till that time known Dr Cook, but, attracted 
by the nature of the subject announced, I went to hear the 
lecture. 

During the course of his lecture the doctor exhibited a 
number of stereopticon views of pictures, purporting to be 
photographs of human forms that were at the time they were 
caught by the photographic plate entirely invisible to the eye. 

Among these pictures was one which I distinctly recognised 
as that of Flora Loudon, who died more than thirty years ago. 
Her death occurred shortly after her return from Washington, 
D.C., where she had been with her grandfather, General Loudon, 
to witness the ceremonies of the inauguration of General Grant 
as President of the United States. 

She was my niece, and during all her life I was in her com- 
pany very often, and knew her intimately, and hence am able 
to aver, from my own personal knowledge, that aforesaid 
photograph bears a most striking resemblance to the original, 
as I knew her near the time of her decease. 

So far as I know, there was never taken during the life of 



406 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Flora Loudon a photograph of her, with such symbols as are 
seen on said photograph, shown me by Dr Cook. 

William Loudon. 

Subscribed and sworn toi Edward G. Kuster, 
before me, this 29th day of>- Notary Public in and for 



May 1905. ) Los Angeles Co., Cal. 

(Seal.) 

It is a great pleasure to be able to give the testimony 
of the eminent scientist and naturalist, Dr Alfred Russel 
Wallace. The full account is contained in his most interest- 
ing work, Miracles and Modern Spiritual Phenomena * which 
should be read by everyone interested in the subject. 
Speaking of a visit to Hudson's studio, he says : 

On March 14th, 1874, I went to Hudson's by appointment. 
I expected if I got any spirit picture it would be that of my 
eldest brother, in whose name messages had been received 
through Mrs Guppy. Before going to Hudson's I sat with 
Mrs G., and had a communication by raps to the effect that 
my mother would appear on the plate if she could. I sat 
three times, always choosing my own position. Each time 
a second figure appeared on the plate with me. The first was 
a male figure, with a short sword ; the second a full-length 
figure, standing a few feet, apparently, on one side and rather 
behind me, looking down at me, and holding a bunch of flowers. 
At the third sitting, after placing myself, and after the pre- 
pared plate was in the camera, I asked if the figure would 
come close to me. The third plate exhibited a female figure 
standing close in front of me, so that the drapery covers the 
lower part of my body. I saw all the plates developed, and 
in each case an additional figure started out the moment the 
developing fluid was poured on, while my portrait did not 
become visible till, perhaps, twenty seconds later. I recog- 
nised none of these figures in the negative ; but the moment 



* Miracles and Modern Spiritual Phenomena, by Alfred Russel 
Wallace, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. George Redway, London. 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 407 

I got the proofs, the first glance showed me that the third 
plate contained an unmistakable portrait of my mother — 
like her both in features and expression. The second figure 
is much less distinct ; the face is looking down ; it has a 
different expression from the other, so that I at first concluded 
that it was a different person. On sending the two female 
portraits to my sister, she thought the second was much more 
like my mother than the third, was, in fact, a very good like- 
ness, though indistinct, while the third seemed to her to be 
like in expression, but with something wrong about the mouth 
and chin. This was found to be due in part to the filling up 
of spots by the photographer ; but when the picture was 
washed it became thickly covered with whitish spots, but a 
better likeness of my mother. I did not see the likeness in the 
second picture till I looked at it with a magnifying glass, and 
I at once saw a remarkable special feature of my mother's 
natural face, an unusually projecting lower lip and jaw. This 
was most conspicuous some years ago, as latterly the mouth 
was somewhat contracted. A photograph taken twenty-two 
years before shows this peculiarity very strongly, and corre- 
sponds well with the second picture, in which the mouth is 
partly open and the lower lip projects greatly. This figure had 
always given me the impression of a younger person than that 
in the third picture, and it is remarkable that they correspond 
respectively with the character of the face as seen in photo- 
graphs taken at intervals of about twelve years, yet without 
the least resemblance to these photographs either in attitude 
or expression. Both figures carry a bunch of flowers exactly 
in the same way ; and it is worthy of notice that while I was 
sitting for the second picture the medium said, " I see someone 
and it has flowers," intimating that she saw flowers distinctly, 
the figure only faintly. Here then are two different faces 
representing the aspect of a deceased person's countenance at 
two different periods of her life. 

Dr B. F. Austin, B.A., of the Austin Publishing Co., 
Rochester, New York, U.S.A., writing to Professor Coates, 
says (Photographing the Invisible, page 160) : 

Some years ago I had from his own lips the story of the 
conversion of Mr Ruthven Macdonald, the famous baritone, 



408 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

soloist of Toronto, Canada, who while a Methodist accepted 
an engagement to sing at Lily Dale. While there, believing, 
as he had been taught, that all psychics were essentially 
fraudulent, he thought he would visit a few as a pastime, 
and among others selected a spirit photographer, who was, 
of course, an entire stranger to him. When the first photo- 
graph was developed, the photographer asked him to sit 
again, as the picture was unsatisfactory. Mr Macdonald asked 
to be shown it, but the photographer demurred and wished 
to destroy it. Mr Macdonald insisted, and on seeing it, 
beheld, to his amazement, the form of his mother standing 
behind him in the picture and holding up a hand with two 
clearly recognisable thumbs. This had struck the photographer 
as uncanny. 

Mr Macdonald, on seeing it, exclaimed : " Destroy that ! 
Why, that is my mother. She had two thumbs on one hand." 

Dr Austin adds : 

I saw this photograph of his mother. The face and form 
were clearly defined and the hand with the two thumbs made 
an impression on me I shall never forget. 

I now give some testimony to the powers of Mr Boursnell 
as a psychic photographer. I only saw him on one occasion, 
about two months before his death. He was then about 
eighty years of age and had obtained psychic photographs 
up to a few months previously. At the time I saw him 
he was in failing health and a ripe old age, and although 
I did not get a sitting for photography I had a fine proof 
of his clairvoyance and an extraordinary demonstration 
of his powers, he twice drawing the auric light from my 
fingers in bright streams, clearly visible in broad daylight, 
once in the presence of Mr R. A. Bush, who also saw it 
distinctly. 

Mrs Shaw, of 303 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, gives an 
account of a sitting she had with him {Photographing the 
Invisible, page 134) : 

Mr Boursnell, the photographer, was unknown to me before 
I sat in his place, I know of no means by which he could 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 409 

have obtained and produced for me this fully identified picture 
of my grandmother, whom I so well remember. 

Mr Duncan Macintosh, of 2 Royal Terrace, Springburn, 
Glasgow, writing to Mr Coates, says, under date 8th October 
19 10 : 

The people who recognise the " extra " as Mrs Shaw's 
grandmother are Mrs Shaw's own mother and her cousins in 
Halifax, Yorks. When Mrs Shaw's mother first saw the photo- 
graph, she exclaimed : "I hope you have not disturbed mother 
in her grave." I called the other evening and spoke to the 
lady herself, and she admitted that these were the words she 
used. Other members of Mrs Shaw's family recognise the 
psychic picture of her grandmother, but are so averse to psychic 
doings that they will not give their names for publication. 

Mrs Shaw's mother gives the following testimony : — 

37 Newcomen Terrace, Coathern, 
Redcar, Yorks. 

I authorise you to say that the spirit face which appears on 
the photograph of my daughter, Mrs Shaw, is that of my 
mother, Hannah Kaye, who died 27th December 1874. 

She is also recognised by Mrs H. E. Shaw. 

(Signed) Sarah Ann Easton. 

Boursnell in the course of his wonderful psychic career 
took hundreds of these pictures showing spirit forms and 
faces, many of which were identified as those of deceased 
relatives and friends of the sitters, and many testimonies 
similar to the above are on record. On the other hand, very 
many, having obtained this evidence, have been afraid to 
testify to it publicly, restrained by fear of ridicule or because 
they thought that the subject was unpopular, unorthodox, 
and so not quite respectable. 

These fears are not confined to one class. They are well 
illustrated by the action of a lady of title who obtained 
precious evidence of survival through Boursnell, of whom 



410 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Mr Stead says (the case was also known to Archdeacon 
Colley and Mr Coates) : 

A society lady well known in literary and scientific circles 
lost an esteemed friend. She went to London, having been 
advised to go to Mr Williams, an old psychic, for materialisa- 
tions. At a circle held in the latter 's house, she suddenly heard 
herself called by a familiar name, and was informed that she 
was wearing a watch in her breast which once belonged to the 
owner of that voice. There was much more, but as it has 
nothing to do with photography, I refrain from further refer- 
ence, except to say that this lady's heart was greatly comforted. 
By direction, she went to a septuagenarian photographer (the 
late Mr Boursnell, London), being careful not to announce her 
name. Poor old Boursnell thought she was a duchess, he 
afterwards told Mr Stead. The old man described a spirit 
invisible to her, but who came in with her. The lady inquired 
if a spirit photograph could be obtained. Mr B. could not 
tell ; he would try. To her intense surprise, the photo-plate 
showed the beloved features of this friend, whom she never 
hoped to see this side of the|grave (the Rev. E. D. Girdlestone). 

It will scarcely be credited, but it is nevertheless a fact, 
that this lady gave strict orders that the negative should 
be destroyed ! ! 

Time was when those who believed in Jupiter's moons, 
the motion of the earth, and the spots on the sun, were 
considered both disreputable and unorthodox, but just as 
those days of ignorant bigotry passed, so will these, and as 
more enlightened views prevail the strange reluctance to 
testify to the reality of spiritual things, so often encountered, 
will become a thing of the past. 

It is a fortunate thing for mankind that the prophets 
and the apostles were free from the absurd notion that 
psychic things were either uncanny, disreputable or un- 
orthodox, and so did not suppress or hide up their evidence, 
or there would have been neither Old or New Testament 
story to guide, encourage and cheer the hearts of men. 

Mr A. Mackellar, 17 Calderwood Road, Merrylea, New 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 411 

lands, Glasgow, whom Mr Coates knows as a man of integrity 
and sound judgment, writes : 

I called on Mr Boursnell with my daughter Nan in the 
hope that I would get a photograph of my late wife. Mr 
Boursnell described a spirit of a clergyman with whom he said 
I had been associated in my earlier days. I did not recognise 
the description. 

When I received the print / at once recognised the striking 
photograph of the family doctor who had attended me from child- 
hood until well on in life. I showed the photograph to his 
son (also a medical man in the city), who said that it was a 
remarkable likeness of his father. I have reason to know that 
he was much impressed with it. 

That Mr Boursnell described him as a clergyman is easily 
accounted for by the fact that the late doctor had quite 
a clerical appearance. A. Mackellar. 

I have in my possession two photos taken by Boursnell 
for my friend, the late Vice-Admiral Usborne Moore. At 
the time they were taken Boursnell did not know the 
Admiral and had no knowledge of his family affairs. One 
shows the spirit picture of the Admiral's grandmother close 
to his side. The face is perfectly distinct and, compared 
with a photo of his grandmother which I also possess, is 
seen to be identical. Another photograph of extraordinary 
interest is the spirit picture of Iola shown standing close 
to the Admiral. Not only was the face recognised by the 
Admiral, but there is a very striking and impressive means 
of identification exhibited by the spirit figure. On the 
right-hand side of the lower lip there is distinctly shown a 
dark patch extending downwards towards the chin. 

The tremendous significance of this apparently trifling 
detail will be realised when it is stated that thirty-five 
years previous to Boursnell taking this photo of a stranger 
Iola, a relation of the Admiral, of whom this spirit picture 
is a likeness, had died of erysipelas, which commenced as 
a small patch on the right-hand side of the lower lip in the 
exact spot shown on the spirit photo. Boursnell by no 



412 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

possible means could have had any knowledge of this. 
The Admiral showed me many other recognised spirit 
photos of friends, but he was particularly emphatic and 
positive as to the evidential nature of these two. I have 
also an intensely interesting photo showing the auric 
light streaming from the Admiral's hand immediately 
after Boursnell had stroked his arm as he stroked mine, 
when he drew the auric light from my fingers in broad 
daylight (page 408). 

I now give two very evidential Wyllie cases. 

Mrs Charlotte Grant, of 30 Derby Street, Glasgow, paid 
a visit to Wyllie in Glasgow in November, 1909. Mr Wyllie, 
owing to the foggy weather, at first refused to take her, but 
finally did so. A bright merry picture of her dead son 
came out on the background of her dress. Speaking of it, 
she says {Photographing the Invisible, page 269) : 

I was not thinking of Alex, but hoping and expecting to 
get the photo of another person. When I got the proof I was 
delighted and surprised to get the picture of my son Alex. 

/ never had a photograph taken of him in life. 

Miss Ross, an old friend of Mrs Grant, who knew Alex. 
well and was with him in his last hours in life, called to see 
Mrs Grant a few days after they obtained the photograph. 
Mrs Grant let her see it without comment. When Miss 
Ross saw it, she exclaimed : " Oh ! that is little Alex. 
with his smiling face. How did you get that ? " Mrs 
Grant said : " He is dead, you know." Miss Ross replied : 
" I know that, but how did you get it ? " 

Professor Coates received the following certificate and 
letter from Mrs Grant and the witnesses, after having sent 
them the above account for confirmation : — 

30 Derby Street, Glasgow, 
■23rd September 1910. 

Dear Sir, — Please find signatures enclosed. When little 
Alex, took the illness from which he died he was very fevered, 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 413 

so I cut his hair to try and cool him. I did not cut it very 
evenly. When I received his spirit photo from Mr Wyllie 
his hair was just as I had cut it before he died. Yours truly, 

Charlotte Grant. 



Certificate enclosed with the above 

We have read the account and beg to testify that it is correct. 
Charlotte Grant, 30 Derby St., Glasgow. 
Margaret Ross, 151 W. Princes St., Glasgow. 
Jean Grant, 30 Derby St., Glasgow. 
Isobelle M. Grant, 30 Derby St., Glasgow. 

The testimony in this case is most conclusive. A stranger 
to Glasgow and to this family produces the photo of a boy 
who has departed this life and who never had his photo- 
graph taken while in the mortal body, there being thus 
no picture of him in existence, save the spirit picture. The 
evidence is as complete as the laws of ordinary and expert 
evidence demand, as Professor Coates remarks. 

Another very evidential case is given by Mr Henry 
Standfast, of Belize, British Honduras. This case is given 
by Professor Coates in Photographing the Invisible, page 286, 
and a long account with much additional evidence obtained 
through other psychics and confirmed by the finding of the 
negatives, was published by him in the Two Worlds, the 
whole forming a most wonderfully evidential case. Mr 
Standfast sent the account of the photograph in the first 
instance to Mr J. J. Morse, and it was published in the 
Two Worlds for 21st April 1911, the same number con- 
taining the notice of the death of Mr Wyllie. 

Mr Morse says : 

Mr Standfast, the writer, is well known to me as a thoroughly 
honourable man, and his plain, straightforward testimony can 
be accepted without reserve. He has resided in Belize, British 
Honduras, for many years, holding a responsible position in 
the United Fruit Company there. 



414 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

In his article in The Two Worlds, Mr Standfast says : 

I had read notices of Mr Wyllie's gifts, and not finding his 
address, I sent to Mr Morse a package containing a lock of 
hair and letters, one to Mr Wyllie and one to my wife, who had 
gone to the " other side " about two years before. I furnished 
no information about age or cause of death, but asked Mr Wyllie 
to do the best he was able for me under the circumstances. 

The letter to my wife contained words to this effect : "A 
photo sometimes takes you at your best, even idealising, as 
everyone knows ; sometimes at your worst — and both are 
exact. Now, I want you to give me one of yourself at your 
best, or as you are now, if that be a possible thing. I do not 
dictate what I know nothing about, but just request this as 
definitely as I can, so my thought may be clear to you on the 
other side of the veil. I am not wishing for an anatomical 
duplicate of the fleshly face. I want a portrait of the being." 

I received a photo depicting my letter addressed to my wife 
attached to a dark screen. Underneath the letter, in the 
right-hand corner, was a painfully accurate portrait of my wife 
as she was a few days before her death. She was tortured to 
death by cancer, which wasted the flesh off her body, and was 
seventy-two years of age. Above the letter, in the left-hand 
corner, is a portrait of her at about thirty or thirty-five years 
of age. 

The features are exact in all details. Noticeable is the way 
she had fixed up her hair. She would curl her hair in a par- 
ticular manner, not in her everyday style, but curled all over 
her head and down the forehead. When finished, she would 
come and look at me straight in the eye, to see if I really 
admired it. (Being an artist, and she having good features, I 
preferred the classic style. ) I used to laugh at her earnestness 
over decoration, and tell her she was beautiful in any style. 

In the portrait showing the face at the latest period there 
is the shoulder on one side down to the breast, given with a 
dress she sometimes wore of a peculiar pattern which I could 
identify in the dark. It is pleated or folded or embossed or 
raised — I don't know the proper feminine name for such work ; 
but it is not printed and not what any lady might happen to 
have, because it was arranged by herself for occasional wear. 
It would be a difficult matter for me to think of any particular 
thing I could ask for in the way of a test more than what is 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 415 

given in these portraits of my wife. Such personal points 
are more convincing to a plain mind like mine than years of 
lectures and stocks of hypotheses. Nothing at all can be 
proved anywhere except by corroborative evidence. I have 
had a very gratifying experience and want to make it as 
widespread as I can. 

Afterwards Professor Coates had considerable correspond- 
ence with Mr Standfast, and the negatives were found 
among Mr Wyilie's effects. This is a wonderful case as 
Mr Standfast was a total stranger to Mr Wyllie, who resided 
over 5000 miles from Belize, the only connecting link 
being the letter and a lock of Mr Standfast's hair. The 
testimony of several witnesses who knew Mrs Standfast, 
and who recognise the spirit picture as her likeness, has 
been obtained by Professor Coates and these letters are 
before me as I write. I reproduce them, as the case is 
important. 

Belize, British Honduras, 
June joth, 1912. 
Mr James Coates, 

Glenbeg House, Rothesay, Scotland. 

Dear Sir, — I beg to say re the photograph of two faces 
shown to me by Mr Standfast and purporting to have been 
taken in England, that I recognise in the elder of the two faces 
the portrait of Mrs Standfast as I saw her in Belize some weeks 
before her death. 

A. Carter, 
Cashier, United Fruit Coy. 

Belize, British Honduras, 
June 10th, 1912. 
To all whom it may concern. 

The photograph, that is to say the elder face, shown to me 
by Mr Standfast, of his late wife is, as far as I remember, a 
very good photo as she appeared shortly before her death. 
I have the honour to be, sir, 

N. Wm. M'Cord, 

H.M. Customs. 



416 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Belize, June 13th, 191 2. 
Mr Coates, 

Dear Sir, — I wish to say that I have known and worked for 
Mrs Standfast for eight years and I recognise her in the photo- 
graph shown me by Mr Standfast, also her dress. — Yours 
respectfully 

Margaret Skelton. 

Quiringua, Quatemala, 
May 2gth, 191 2. 
Mr James Coates, 

Dear Sir, — In reply to your letter of 16th April last addressed 
to me at Belize, Brit. Honduras, relative to a psychic photo- 
graph of the late Mrs Harriet Standfast, I have much pleasure 
in saying that I recognise the elder of the two faces on the 
photo shown me by Mr Hy. Standfast as that of his late wife as 
she was about two months before her death, the last time 
I saw her. I knew the late Mrs Standfast for several years. 
Yours faithfully, 

Jas. M. Hylton. 

United Fruit Company Steamship Lines, 
Port of Belize, B.H. 

June gth, 1912. 
Mr James Coates, 

Dear Sir, — I beg to say that I recognise the photo of Mrs 
H. Standfast, shown me by Mr Standfast, as a portrait of that 
lady some few weeks before her death. 

Yours truly, Harold F. Sharp, 

Coast Purser, United Fruit Co. 

There are scores of well-evidenced cases attesting the 
genuineness of Mr Wyllie's powers in addition to the ones 
here quoted. The reader is referred to Professor Coates' 
book, when he will find many others. Mr Wyllie departed 
this life, on 10th April 191 1, in his sixty-third year. 

He had been a captain in the New Zealand A.C., and 
took an active part in the Maori campaign. He was of 
the Scotch family of Wyllies, who as statesmen and soldiers 
have been connected with India for over a hundred years. 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 417 

The late Lieutenant-Colonel Sir W. H. Curzon Wyllie, 
K.C.I.E., C.V.O., who was shot in London, was his cousin. 
Mr Wyllie was born in Calcutta in 1848, his father being 
the late Colonel Robert Wyllie, of Elderslie, North Devon, 
who was for many years Military Secretary to the Govern- 
ment of India. 

The following is an interesting testimony from Mr Walter 
Jones, director of the well-known firm of Jones & Atwood, 
of Stourbridge. Writing Professor Coates under date 
19th April 191 1, he says : 

My first meeting with Mr Wyllie was in a London hotel. I 
invited him to dine with one lady and two gentlemen friends 
who were, I believe, Agnostics. The four were strangers to 
each other. When we had nearly finished dinner, I remarked 
to them : " Our friend here is a psychic, and takes psychic or 
spirit photos ; I don't know whether he is clairvoyant, also." 
He replied : "I am not a good clairvoyant, although I see 
things occasionally ; but I am not the only clairvoyant in the 
company." I looked at him, and he continued: "The lady 
opposite is also clairvoyant. Are you aware of it, madam ? " 
"No," she replied. "Well, I see a young girl by your side, 
with long curls and bright blue eyes, looking at you intently, 
and I am sure you often see that girl." " Yes," she replied, 
" that is my sister Jessie, who died in my arms eighteen years 
ago, and I have seen her every day since." This was a greater 
surprise to her husband than to any other member of the party. 

Mr Walter Jones, of Stourbridge, is the managing director 
of Messrs Jones & Atwood, Engineers and Ironfounders, 
Stourbridge. In the iron and steel world and in scientific 
sanitary and municipal circles he is well known and is a 
practical man of affairs. He had the following remarkable 
experience, which he sent to Professor Coates, under date 
12th November 1909 (Photographing the Invisible, page 354). 

For some reason or another the question of psychic photog- 
raphy seems to have been dogging my footsteps for several 
months, and I have asked myself : Is it accidental ? is it coin- 
cidence or is it design ? 

2 D 



418 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

On Saturday, August 7th, 1909, my daughter and I went 
for a cruise on board the Amazon on the fiords of Norway. 
I made the acquaintance of two youths who were accompanied 
by an aunt. One of the youths stated that she had received 
a message by automatic writing. I asked the lady if she 
believed in spirit photography. She replied: "Oh yes; a 
friend of mine has many of them." At my request she gave 
me the name and address of the gentleman. 

My interest was aroused. I had not seen any spirit photog- 
raphy. On writing Mr Blackwell he wrote me saying that he 
would be pleased to see me. I called on Wednesday, 22nd 
September, and spent six hours with him. Just before I said 
good-bye he gave me one out of his collection. Was it a co- 
incidence that this particular photograph should be recognised 
by myself and several intimate personal friends as that of my 
dear wife who passed away on February 15th, 1897 ? 

The remarkable feature of this case is the fact that this 
photo had been obtained psychically several years before 
by Mr Lacy, who passed it on to Mr Blackwell, and it had 
been classified as " unrecognised." It lay unrecognised 
among scores of others in the collection until an absolute 
stranger, Mr Jones, was mysteriously led to visit Mr 
Blackwell, and this particular spirit photograph was handed 
to Mr Jones and proves to be an admirable likeness of his 
deceased wife, who passed away twelve years previously. 
Neither Mr Lacy nor Mr Blackwell had ever seen or heard 
of Mrs Jones, and it was evidently no mere coincidence 
that brought about this extraordinary meeting and recog- 
nition. A companion of the spirit photo and a portrait of 
the late Mr Jores shows that the features are absolutely 
identical. 

At the present time the only psychics in this country 
possessing the power of obtaining these spirit photographs 
with any degree of certainty are Mr William Hope and 
Mrs Buxton, both of Crewe, and Dr T. D'Aute-Hooper, of 
Birmingham. 

The first two, Mr Hope and Mrs Buxton, work together 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 419 

usually, but each can obtain results independently. Pro- 
fessional photographers and others well versed in photog- 
raphy, sometimes using their own cameras, have obtained 
remarkable results through them. During the past fifteen 
years many recognised portraits of the departed have been 
obtained through them under test conditions. The evidence 
available is overwhelming and sufficient to convince any 
reasonable man. 

Mr Walker, late of 3 Palace Road, Buxton, a photog- 
rapher whose experience goes back to the wet -plate days, 
gives the following testimony to the powers of Mr Hope 
and Mrs Buxton, the Crewe psychic photographers : 

On November 7th, 1910, I sat with the Crewe Circle, and 
was photographed by the camerist of the Circle. Two plates 
were exposed on me— time, 15 seconds each, the day being 
dull. On one plate, in addition to other "extras," is the 
portrait of my friend Mr Alfred Smedley, late of Park Mount, 
Belper, so well known. On the second plate Mr Smedley 
appears again, but on the opposite side of me, with another 
"extra," said to be that of the spirit responsible for the 
phenomena produced at the Circle. The background used 
was the grey side of an American cloth table-cover, and the 
plates were mine. 

I purchased the plates, which no one handled after the 
maker packed them save myself. In the dark-room I cut 
open the box and, after carefully examining the dark slide, I 
inserted two plates. The remaining ten plates in the box were 
carried in my pocket. The camera, which I examined, was 
empty and the lens clean. I inserted the dark slide. After 
exposure, I took it, with plates, into the dark room and 
developed the latter. I now send you the photographs, which 
I have enlarged at your request, for Photographing the Invisible. 
The camerist withdrew the shutters but neither he nor anyone 
else touched the plates. 

Mr Alfred Smedley and Mr Walker were lifelong friends, 
so there is no doubt as to the recognition, but the following 
certificate settles this point : — 



420 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Derby Road, Belper, 
April 8th, 191 1. 

I have much pleasure in certifying that the spirit photographs 
taken with Mr Walker at Crewe in November last are of my 
father, the late Alfred Smedley, and that the portraits are 
identified also by the undersigned, whose names are appended 
to this certificate. 

Lilian R. Smedley. 

Thos. F. Smedley, Derby Road, Belper. 

Geo. Wheeldon, Joseph Street, Belper. 

Hy. Wigley, Bridge Street, Belper. 

(Photographing the Invisible, page 296.) 

Sir William Crookes, who is acknowledged as the doyen 
of English scientists, gives the following testimony to the 
powers of Mr Hope and Mrs Buxton in The Psychic Gazette 
for December, 19 17 : 

I went down to Crewe and had my photograph taken by 
the psychics known as " The Crewe Circle." My portrait was 
a very good one, and on the same negative was a good, recog- 
nisable portrait of my departed wife, just by the side of me. 

Now, I had taken the packet of plates with me from London 
in my pocket. I bought them in this neighbourhood, and 
took the packet down unopened just as I had received it. 
And when I got to Mr Hope's (the photographer) I went into 
his dark room with him ; he was quite willing. I then opened 
the packet of plates myself and took out one of them, which I 
marked with my initials. I wrapped up the remaining eleven 
plates in the paper they came in. Then I put my marked 
plate in the dark slide and put it in my pocket. We next 
went out into the room where Mr Hope takes his photographs. 
I sat down in a chair, and when all was ready for him to 
photograph me I handed the dark slide to the lady who was 
with me, from London, and she handed it to him. Mr Hope 
simply put the slide into the camera, opened it, took my 
photograph, shut it up again, took the slide out of the camera, 
and handed it back to the lady, who gave it to me. There- 
upon I took it into the dark room and developed the plate 
myself. I may say I am an experienced photographer. Mr 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 421 

Hope did not touch the plate until after it was fixed. I 
brought it home here and printed from it. 

Now that, I think, is a very good test. I had only the one 
photograph taken. There was no one visible by my side, and 
the lady who accompanied me from London saw nothing 
there. I will show you the picture. Everybody who has seen 
it who knew my wife — not simply our relations and family — 
recognises it as her portrait. It is not like any other portrait 
I have. The expression is similar to that she wore during the 
weakness of her last illness. 

One such testimony from such a man sweeps away like 
so much chaff the opposition of those who, never having 
made an honest and patient investigation and devoid of 
practical experience, endeavour to discredit a subject of 
which they know nothing. 

I have received the following from Mr William Jeffrey, 
a well-known and thoroughly practical business man of 
15 India Street and 73-85 M 'Alpine Street, Glasgow. 
Writing under date 20th July 1918, he says :— 

I first met Mr Hope in June 191 4 in Glasgow, just before 
the war. We used the studio of a professional photographer, 
having with us also a Mr — , one of the managers of the firm 
of Kodak Limited, a man of considerable experience and 
recognised to be one of the most able men in photography. 
(For business reasons his name is withheld, but can be given 
privately.) The first experiment took place on June 28th, 
the camera being examined by all of us. I am an expert 
amateur conjurer and if there had been any trick I should 
have detected it right away. It was my knowledge of conjuring 
which first made me investigate psychic phenomena with the 
idea of showing up the whole thing as a fraud. I found truth, 
and I thank God for it. To make quite sure of the camera 
having nothing to do with the production of these spirit photos 
we asked if we might test it by using another camera, which 
was granted, and we borrowed a half -plate camera and plates 
from an adjoining studio. The sensitive plate was signed all 
over the film to prevent substitution. We loaded the dark 
slides with the plates and developed and fixed the negatives 



422 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

ourselves. The result of this first experiment was that the 
face of my grandfather came right upon my chest. He has 
also come on two other plates. 

I have compared the photograph of Mr Jeffrey's grand- 
father taken when in the earth life with the spirit photos, 
and the likeness is unmistakable. Mr Jeffrey also sent 
for my inspection another psychic photo taken on 26th 
January 1917, showing the face of his late wife. Of this 
photo he says : 

The face is as like Mrs Jeffrey as it possibly could be. In 
this case I did all the process of loading the slide and developing 
the plates. 

On the back of the photo he states that it is her exact 
likeness as she was shortly before her last illness, and that 
no similar photograph was previously in existence. This is 
excellent testimony coming as it does from a photographic 
expert and a first-rate conjurer, who would have been able 
to detect any trick had it been there. The thing is, how- 
ever, clenched by the fact that the spirit photos are re- 
cognised as the likeness of the departed. 

During the same visit of Mr Hope to Glasgow, Mr Peter 
Galloway, of 98 Argyle Street, a well-known business man, 
had a photo taken of himself and wife by Mr Hope. On 
this is a perfectly clear and distinct picture of their little 
daughter, exactly as she was in the earth life, and which 
they clearly and distinctly recognise. She never had her 
photograph taken while in the mortal body, nor was any sketch 
or drawing ever made of her. At the time the photograph 
was taken both of them were thinking of their deceased 
son, and hoping they would get his picture. Instead of 
the son's picture they got the daughter's, proving once 
again that those pictures are not thought forms. 

The following account was recently sent to me by Lady 
Glenconner, with permission to use it "as a testimony to 
the truth of spirit photography in your forthcoming book." 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 423 

The case is one of singular interest, most impressive and 
remarkable. Under dates 22nd September and 1st October 
1 91 8, she writes : 

In May 191 7 I had a vivid dream of my boy saying to me 
that he would meet me at Crewe, without fail, and that he 
would stand behind me, placing his hand on my left shoulder. 
This was my dream and I, feeling sure that it was a message 
from him, caused my younger son to write a statement, worded 
and signed as follows : — 

" I hereby bear witness that Mamma told me she had dreamed 
of ' Bim, ' who told her in her dream that he would meet her 
at Crewe, and, standing behind her, would put his hand on her 
left shoulder. 

"(Signed) Stephen Tennant. 

" May 1917." 

Lady Glenconner still has this document, signed and 
dated, amongst her papers. In October of the same year 
she visited Mr Hope at Crewe with her younger son, Stephen 
Tennant, and they sat together for a photograph. To 
her great delight there appeared on one of the plates, 
amidst a good deal of auric light,, a hand resting on her 
left shoulder. Thus was the compact fulfilled (vide 
Chapter XII.). I particularly inquired as to whether any 
mention of the dream or of the promise to show a hand on 
her shoulder had been made to Mr Hope, and she replied, 
under date 1st October 1918 : 

No, I did not mention my dream to Mr Hope, or the promise 
of the hand being seen on my shoulder. 

While in another letter she particularly dwells on the 
point that Mr Hope could by no possibility have any 
knowledge of the dream or compact. (On this head the 
reader is referred to the case of Mr Galloway's little 
daughter.) By the kindness of Lady Glenconner I 
possess a print from the original negative of this wonderful 
photograph. It shows her seated, with her younger son. 



424 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Just above her left shoulder is a little cloud of light, and 
from the midst of this cloud extends a sharply defined 
wrist and hand, the hand being laid on her left shoulder. 
Under a magnifying glass the details and modelling of the 
hand — the fingers, knuckles and wrist-joint — are seen with 
the utmost clearness and distinctness, so as to be absolutely 
unmistakable. 

I have yet to see the person who has not been deeply 
impressed by this most wonderful photograph. 

The Hon. Edward Wyndham Tennant, Lieutenant 
4th Battalion Grenadier Guards, the son of Lord and Lady 
Glenconner, who has thus wonderfully manifested from 
the spirit world, fell in action at the battle of the Somme, 
22nd September 1916. 

Among the photos obtained through Mr Hope of those 
who have fallen in the war and clearly recognised by the 
relatives, one — sent to me just as this book goes to Press, by 
Mr J. Hewat M'Kenzie — of his son who was killed in the 
fighting around Jerusalem, and taken on 26th September 
1918 — distinctly shows the bullet wound in the temple 
which was the cause of death. Mr M'Kenzie says that Mr 
Hope could by no possibility have had any knowledge of 
this detail, and that no description of it or any photograph 
of him had appeared publicly. 

On 28th June 19 18 I had two sittings with Mr Hope 
and Mrs Buxton, one in the morning, the other in the after- 
noon. I made no appointment with them. They did not 
know who I was and I withheld my name and address 
until after the plates were developed. Having made a 
careful study of the subject I was thoroughly au fait with 
all the methods of producing faked or bogus spirit photos. 
I asked permission to have control of the conditions, and 
this was readily granted. I purchased a packet of quarter 
plates, which I brought with me unopened to the house. 
I most carefully examined everything connected with the 
process. I took the camera to pieces, unscrewed the 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 425 

components of the lens and thoroughly examined every 
part of it, passing my fingers through the lens tube. I 
also examined the background. As, however, most of the 
spirit faces or figures are wholly, or in part, projected on 
the clothing or persons of the sitters the prepared background 
theory is at once ruled out. I thoroughly examined the 
dark slide every time. I filled it with plates from the 
packet in my pocket, and carefully examined Mr Hope's 
hands. Everything was simple and straightforward. 

I had twelve plates exposed on me. All these plates I 
placed in the dark slide myself. In the case of six of 
the plates I was alone in the dark room. With the other 
six Mr Hope was present in the dark room when I placed 
them in the slide. In no case did Mr Hope touch the 
plates or place his hand over them during the operation 
of filling the slide. 

I carried the slide out to the room where the photos 
were to be taken, and after the picture was focused handed 
the slide to Mr Hope, who placed it in the camera, drew 
the shutter, and the exposure was made by means of rubber 
tube and press ball by either Mrs Buxton or Mr Hope, who 
stood one on each side of the camera, and during the 
exposure, which varied from ten to fifteen seconds, each 
held a hand over the camera, not touching it but distant 
some three or four inches from it. The shutter of the slide 
was then pushed in, the slide reversed and another exposure 
made on the second plate. This completed, the slide was 
handed to me, and I took it to the dark room, and there 
developed and fixed the plates myself, never allowing Mr 
Hope or any other person save myself to touch the plates 
from the time they were taken from the packet in my 
pocket until they were developed and fixed by me person- 
ally. Each plate was carefully marked by me with a 
private mark graven in the gelatine film with a sharp- 
pointed instrument, so that it could not be erased. These 
marks were carefully noted on the plates before and after 



426 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

development to make sure of no substitution. I carefully 
inspected the dark slide and camera, and looked through 
the lens before the exposure of each pair of plates. I 
never allowed Mr Hope and the slide when he held it to 
be out of my sight for a moment, and there was no possible 
opportunity for him to tamper with the plate, had he 
wished to do so. I may say that I am a photographer of 
many years' experience and thoroughly familiar with the art. 
The resulting twelve negatives constitute a series which 
Mr Hope informs me are unique in all his psychic photo 
experiences. Here is a description of the twelve negatives, 
i and 2. No trace of any abnormal appearance of 
any kind. Nothing but myself and the background is to be 
seen. 

3. A distinct light, in the form of a nebulous white cloud, 
appears above my left shoulder and in contact with my 
cheek. 

4. A remarkable white veil over my face, partly blurring 
and obscuring my features. All the rest of the picture 
perfectly sharp and clear. My head has not moved, for 
the ears and chin are critically sharply defined. 

5. A white tuft or brush of nebulosity standing up several 
inches from the top of my head and on the left-hand side 
of it. 

6. The same white tuft of nebulosity shows projecting 
from the right-hand side of my head. 

7. At this stage both Mr Hope and Mrs Buxton, especially 
the latter, showed disappointment and anxiety, because 
no definite faces had yet come. I had had no sleep the 
previous night and was not in good form. It was suggested 
that two of Mrs Buxton's daughters should stand behind 
me as I sat in the chair. To this I consented, and I 
again loaded the slide with two plates from the packet 
I carried with me, and these were duly exposed. The 
first, No. 7, shows nothing abnormal, nothing but myself 
seated and the two girls standing behind me. 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 427 

8. The second plate shows two nebulous patches of light 
on the background — one between the two girls' heads, the 
other above one of the girls. These two balls or patches 
of light appear to stand out stereoscopically from the back- 
ground, as though they were floating in the air close to the 
girls' heads. 

9. Sat for this exposure with the two girls standing behind, 
as in the two previous ones. This photograph shows a 
strong, clearly defined man's face projected upon the upper 
part of my head and occupying the vacant space between 
the two girls. The features are strong and distinct, and a 
curious tuft or stream of light rays extends from the upper 
part of the face. This face, seen in the stereoscope, gives 
the distinct impression of being in front of the two girls 
and of being superimposed upon my head, and distant quite 
three feet from the background. It seems to be floating 
in the space between and in front of the girls and close to 
me. The face is evidently that of my uncle, James 
Tweedale, who died many years ago. 

10. The two girls now retired and I sat alone for the 
remaining three exposures. Nothing abnormal on this 
plate. 

11. A white patch on the left-hand side of my head and 
in contact with it. This shows the eyebrows and part of 
the nose of the same face as No. 9. 

12. A strong white patch completely hiding part of my 
right cheek and showing distinctly the nose and central 
part of the same face as is given in No. 9. 

A careful examination of Plate No. 5 shows also traces 
of the eyebrows and bridge of nose of this same face which 
has thus shown up on four plates, while attempts to register 
its presence are indicated by tufts of light and nebulous 
clouds on four others. Four plates are blanks or devoid 
of abnormal results. Eight out of twelve contain results 
which I am positive could not have been transferred to the 
plates by any normal means. As soon as I saw that the 



428 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

phenomena were manifesting in contact with my face and 
head, I changed my position each exposure, after the slide 
was drawn, so as to alter the position of my head on the 
plate after focusing. In spite of this and of the fact that 
my head is seen in widely different positions on the negatives 
the lights and faces in seven out of eight results are 
in careful contact with my head, accurately following my 
movements and changes of position. The face exactly 
represents that of my uncle, of whom I was not thinking. 
During several of the exposures I held a lock of my mother's 
hair in my hand, and during others, a watch belonging to my 
father-in-law, in each case concentrating on them to test the 
statement that these things are "thought pictures." No 
trace of either of these persons shows on the plates, proving 
conclusively that the face on my plate was not due to the 
concentration of my thought. The camera used was an 
ordinary quarter-plate tripod-stand camera, and was re- 
arranged in position and focused for every two plates 
taken. No figures were clairvoyantly seen during the 
photographing, but at a sitting we had previous to the 
photography Mr Hope said that he clairvoyantly saw 
the form of a young girl near me. This, it is to be 
noted, did not appear on the plates, as would have been 
likely if the " extras " had been produced by him by a 
trick. 

The above test sweeps away all the theories of fraudulent 
production of these figures, such as : 

i. Trick dark slide. 

2. Substituted slide or plate. 

3. Double exposure. 

4. Film, bearing image, and placed in the lens. 

5. Transparency hidden in slide or camera. 

6. Image painted in luminous or radio-active substance 
on inside of slide, or secreted in the hand and held over the 
plate. 

7. Prepared background. 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 429 

8. Image introduced by a pinhole " lens " through front 
or side of camera. 

It also disposes of all such theories as that these pictures 
are the result of the imagination running riot amidst the 
shadows of cloud effects, foliage, folds of garments, or 
stippled surfaces. The face on my series is so clear and 
distinct as to render mistake impossible, in addition to 
which it is reproduced in four different positions on the 
plates. 

In addition to the above considerations there is the matter 
of frequent recognition of spirit faces. This sweeps away 
at one stroke all the theories of fraud, especially, as very 
often happens, when no photograph or picture of the 
departed was in existence {vide pages 412, 422). 

Of this recognition I have had abundant proof. I have 
seen a score or more of well-authenticated recognised 
pictures taken by Mr Hope and Mrs Buxton under test 
conditions and compared them with the photographs of 
the deceased taken during their earth life, and received 
the most solemn testimony from the owners of many of 
these pictures, some of them my personal friends, and many 
of them holding positions of high standing and responsibility. 
I have also had the testimony of people who received 
recognised pictures of their departed dead through Mr 
Hope and Mrs Buxton when there has been no other picture 
or photograph in existence. In short, the evidence that 
can be produced for the reality of this form of psychic 
manifestation both through Mr Hope and his colleague 
is of the most convincing nature, while the total evidence 
available for the fact that recognised pictures of the departed 
dead can be obtained, and have been obtained, by super- 
normal means is simply overwhelming, and can only be 
ignored by those who are either ignorant of, or deliberately 
ignore or pervert, the facts. 

A careful study of the cases on record shows unmistak- 
ably that the spiritual beings concerned in the production 



430 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of these pictures are not confined to one method, but 
just as human beings in the material world can employ 
different methods of reproduction, so can they. If one 
wishes to present one's likeness to the camera one can 
either — 

i. Pose directly in propria persona. 

2. Present a painting, sketch or statue of oneself to the 
lens and have that photographed. 

There is good reason to conclude that discarnate spiritual 
beings can do likewise. 

There is every reason to believe that many of the spirit 
photos obtained are direct portraits of the spirit or spiritual 
body. As I have said before, the spirit body is of a 
very refined and tenuous nature, but still material. The 
observed phenomena of materialisation (Chapter XX.) show 
conclusively that it can clothe itself with grosser matter 
in varying degrees of solidity, extending through the mist- 
like atmoplasma, the dough-like pachyplasma up to absolute 
solidity. Obviously the assuming of sufficient solidity to 
reflect sufficient light to be observable by the camera lens is 
a matter of degree and well within the scope of the observed 
phenomena, especially when we also remember that the 
spirit body is often seen to emit a radiance or light peculiarly 
its own, which light may easily affect the photographic 
plate while invisible to normal sight. 

Photographing the normally invisible has of late years 
become a common experience, as illustrated by astro- 
nomical photography, the photography of certain regions 
of the spectrum, and of certain chemical substances. 

In the case of those spirit pictures which are faint and 
nebulous, probably the clothing of the original spirit body 
with matter has not been carried far. In those cases where 
the picture is clear and vigorous the process of overlaying 
with grosser matter has been more extended. I have a 
wonderful photo taken by Mr Hope, of Crewe, in which the 
actual process of drawing the atmoplasma from the bodies 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 431 

of the sitters previous to obtaining the photograph of the 
spirit form is shown in a very remarkable manner. On 
the other hand, some pictures obtained by psychic photog- 
raphy are evidently the images of representations or 
models held up or presented by the spirit people to the 
camera, just as we might hold up a person's picture to be 
copied. Some exhibit additional symbols, or designs, just 
as we might wear certain articles of jewellery on our persons, 
for purposes of evidence or identification. 

The spirit forms on the plates are often accompanied by 
symbols, as in the case of Flora Loudon (page 404), whose 
spirit photograph is accompanied by a heart, star and cross. 
Should this fact present difficulties to some let them re- 
member that the making or presenting of these pictures 
or symbols is no more wonderful than the spirit raiment 
which accompanies the departed, and which clad the arisen 
Christ. It would be absurd to suppose that spiritual beings 
with their extended powers are less able to make and 
construct things than mortals. It is very evident that 
these symbolic figures are assumed, drawn or constructed 
for the occasion by the spirit people. Some of the spirit 
figures, also, have the appearance of not being direct pictures 
of the spirit body, but photographs of something analogous 
to a sketch or picture of the deceased person held out before 
or presented to the camera ; but many are undoubtedly 
direct photos, as I have before remarked. 

Still another class of results are observed, termed psycho- 
graphs. These pictures are obtained without the aid of a 
lens and without the photographic action of such daylight 
or artificial light as we are in general familiar with. I have 
ranked this class as No. 3. Exactly how these results are 
produced on the plate it is impossible at present to say. 
They are not done by lenses such as we have any know- 
ledge of. The spirit operators are either able to project 
images by means at present totally unknown to us, or they 
represent " light paintings " upon the sensitive film, or 



432 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

impressions analagous to X-ray photos, in any case done in 
some kind of light which is radio-active and capable of 
passing through opaque coverings ; for these pictures 
(psychographs) are obtained by holding the unopened box 
of plates between the hands of the psychics for a few minutes 
and then developing them. After the publication of Mr 
Trail Taylor's experiments, in which he stated that some of 
the psychic images produced in a stereoscopic camera 
employed by him had apparently not been produced by 
the lens, Mr Andrew Glendinning tried to get psychic 
pictures without a camera and was the first in this country 
to get results by this method, through Duguid and others. 
These psychographs have also been obtained by the Rev. 
Charles Hall Cook, also by Mr H. A. Reid and Mr William 
J. Peirce, through the psychic powers of Wyllie, and also 
by the late Archdeacon Colley and others, through the 
Crewe psychics and through Dr T. D'Aute Hooper of 
Birmingham. In all the above classes of psychic pictures 
there is not only abundant evidence of the appreciation 
of intelligent agents apart from the incarnate human 
beings engaged in the experiment, but also abundant 
evidence of the survival and present existence of those 
deceased persons whose likenesses show up on the photo- 
graphic plates. This evidence of supernormal intelligences 
and human survival after death comes out equally strongly 
in the production of the fourth class of pictures which I 
am now about to describe. 

Some years ago reports began to come over to this country 
from the United States that two ladies, Miss L. S. Bangs 
and Miss E. Bangs, of Chicago, possessed the extraordinary 
power of producing remarkably beautiful and almost life- 
size paintings of deceased persons in a few minutes by 
supernormal powers and under test conditions. While 
painting and photography are different methods of picture 
production, the evidence for supernormal agency and for 
human survival afforded by these spirit paintings put them 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 433 

on a par with psychic photographs for the purposes of this 
chapter. I therefore propose to give some account of 
these deeply interesting pictures. My friend, the late 
Vice- Admiral Usborne Moore, made a journey to the United 
States in 1909 for the especial purpose of seeing the Bangs 
Sisters and witnessing the production of these pictures. 
Several pictures were produced for him, some being the 
absolute likeness of his deceased relative of whom the 
Bangs Sisters could by no possible means have ever seen a 
picture, while the conditions under which the pictures were 
produced were such as to make any such information useless 
to the psychics even if it had been in their possession. 
The following is an account of the conditions under which 
the Admiral's pictures were produced. It is taken from his 
book, Glimpses 0} the Next State, a book of deepest interest, 
which should be read by every person interested in spirit 
phenomena and human survival. The pictures were 
produced in this instance in a small room about 12 feet by 
8, with an ordinary window, which is burglar proof and 
never opened, facing the south. The Admiral goes on to 
say: 

Two thin canvases stretched on wooden frames and covered 
with thin paper were placed face to face and held up to the 
window. The blind was then drawn down to the top of the 
canvases and curtains were hung up in my presence on either 
side. 

The window has a southern aspect and the light coming 
through the two semi-transparent canvases is sufficient for 
the purpose of taking notes and seeing everything that goes on. 
The small oak table was placed lengthwise in the window ; 
the bottom of the canvases rests upon it. Nelly Bangs sat on 
my right side facing me, and pinching together with her right 
hand one side of the two canvases. Lizzie Bangs sat on my 
left side facing me and pinching together the other side of the 
canvases with her left hand. I faced the middle of the can- 
vases, my face being between two feet and two and a half 
feet from them. 

2 E 



434 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

From the description the reader can get a good idea 
of the conditions. The canvases are usually selected at 
random by the sitter from a pile of plain canvases any one 
of which the sitter may choose and carefully inspect. If 
he likes he may bring his own canvases, as the Admiral did, 
which need never go out of his sight nor out of his possession 
save when they are reared up on the table opposite the 
window, and then they are within two and a half Jeet oj 
him, all the time until the picture is finished. 

I will now give the Admiral's description of his obtaining 
the picture of a relative who died upwards of thirty years 
previously and whom the Bangs Sisters had never seen in 
the flesh, nor could they ever have seen a picture of her 
{Glimpses oj the Next State, page 248). 



January 20th, 1909. — Atmospheric conditions good. Went 
to the Bangs Sisters. Everything was ready at 10.50 and we 
sat till 11.30. I had in my dollar pocket — inside waistcoat — 
a carte de visite of Iola taken in the year 1874. The psychics 
had never seen this or any other photograph in my possession. 
Fifteen minutes after we sat in the window the face and bust 
appeared. The profile was looking to the right. It must be 
remembered that I was looking through the back of the picture, 
and it was forming on the further side of that canvas which was 
nearest to me, consequently had it gone on as it was and been 
finished it would now, when framed, be looking to the left. 
When the portrait was nearly finished the two canvases were 
lowered towards me on the table. A message came to me by 
taps to Nelly Bangs, who said : 

" She thinks that your wife would prefer to see her in the 
pose to which she has been accustomed." 

Up went the canvases again to the window, and I found that 
the whole picture was changed round, so that the profile looked 
to the left instead of the right. In a few minutes the portrait 
was finished. From the time the face and bust appeared to 
the time when the canvases were separated and put on the sofa 
in the next room twenty-five minutes elapsed. Neither of the 
psychics had ever seen the carte de visite in my pocket. 

When the portrait was finished it bore a very close resem- 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 435 

blance to the photograph. It was looking in the same direc- 
tion — to the right. It is impossible for anyone who compares 
the photograph with the picture to deny that they are one and 
the same individual. At the same time the picture is not a 
slavish copy of the photograph. Its pose is more upright, 
the face is spirituelle, and the dress not exactly the same. 
There is a firmness, a decision, and a calm, contented happiness 
in the face which is absent in the carte de visite. It is a work 
of art. 

Writing of this picture again, the Admiral says : 

The prepared picture theory and all conjurers' idle stories 
fall to pieces. Nobody ever did or ever will duplicate this 
episode under similar conditions by non-psychic means. 

On 1st March 1909 the Admiral obtained another 
picture of the same relative. Of this he says (page 261) : 

I mentally desired that the locket should be made larger 
and that a monogram should be impressed upon it. Now 
occurred a very remarkable instance of invisible power. Nobody 
was present when I inspected the locket in the picture on this 
occasion ; the psychics were not at home. My next visit was 
at 10.20 the following morning, March 2, 1909. I then found 
that the monogram had been imprinted on the locket, not an exact 
copy of the raised letters on the real locket in my possession, 
but the three correct letters were there,, and the locket itself 
was enlarged. 

This response to mental requests and the production of 
pictures of deceased persons of whom, or of whose portraits, 
the psychics by no possibility could ever have had any 
sight or knowledge, at once removes these phenomena from 
the category of human productions by non-psychic means 
and blows to smithereens the idle and absurd pretensions of 
conjurers to produce such pictures by the sleight-of-hand 
substitution of already prepared pictures, said prepared 
pictures being put behind the front canvas at a considerable 
distance from it and gradually approached or brought nearer 



436 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

to the front canvas by clockwork, this taking place on a 
stage, a considerable distance from the observers, who are 
not allowed to approach the canvases during the process. 

As Smedley justly observes : " Whole continents of differ- 
ence lie between actually doing a thing and seeming to do it." 
Psychic phenomena cannot be duplicated by non-psychic 
means, under the same conditions, and to this well-known 
fact Robert Houdin, the greatest prestidigitator that ever 
lived gave emphatic testimony, declaring that the psychic 
phenomena he had experienced were totally beyond the 
resources of his art * (Psychische Studien, January, 1878). 
Bosco (D.S.R., page 278), Kellar and Bellachini, well- 
known professors of the art, gave a similar verdict (Kellar, 
in The Indian Daily News, 30th January 1882), stating 
that: 

After a most stringent and strict scrutiny of these wonderful 
experiences I can arrive at no other conclusion than that there 
was no trace of fraud in any form, nor was there in the room 
any mechanism by which could be produced the phenomena 
which had taken place. See also Carrington, Fielding and 
Baggally's report to the S.P.R. (page 373). 

The conjurer's art forms a pleasing entertainment, right 
enough in its place, but the claims of those who, making 
money out of clumsy imitations of psychic phenomena, 
impudently declare that there are no real ones, are merely 
contemptible. 

I have seen and carefully examined some of these pictures 
done through the psychic power of the Bangs Sisters. 

* Why don't those prestidigitators who try to explain away all 
modern psychic phenomena by conjuring, likewise endeavour to show 
by the resources of their art, that all the wonders of the New Testa- 
ment narrative were tricks and illusions ? — e.g. Christ stilling the 
waves by surreptitiously pouring oil on them from a skin ; turning 
the water into wine by using trick jars ; causing the voice at his 
baptism, and at the Transfiguration, by ventriloquism, and the 
figures of Moses and Elias by reflections — a la Pepper's ghost. There 
is a fine field for enterprise here. 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 437 

Many of them are works of art of such size and excellence 
that a first-class artist could not produce them under 
less than two days, devoting his whole time to the work. 
Yet they have often been produced by the Bangs Sisters 
in from five to ten minutes. Some of them are as large as 
41 by 31 inches, and they are in fine colours and of im- 
posing appearance, very similar to oil, or rather pastel 
paintings. There is considerable colour substance in the 
pictures, and when finished the pictures are quite wet, and 
the colour substance, which is of an oily nature, comes off 
on the finger if the picture is touched. The two canvases 
are placed face to face in contact and pinched hard together. 
The picture always comes on the face of the canvas nearest 
to the sitter and the other canvas farthest away from the 
sitter is always clean and unstained when the two are 
separated. Details are often produced on the pictures in 
response to mental requests and often the eyes of the picture 
remain closed up to the picture being finished, and then 
open and remain open ! 

The reality of these marvels has been tested again and 
again by persons in all walks of life. Here are the testi- 
monies of some of the witnesses. The first is that of Judge 
Levi Mock — one of the Court Judges of the United States — 
of Duffton, Indiana. The account appeared in The Light 
of Truth, for 16th September 1905 : 

The Judge selected a canvas from a pile of fifty or more on 
which the picture was to be made. This was all the prepara- 
tion necessary. One of the sisters sat on either side of an 
ordinary centre table, supporting the mounted canvas by one 
hand, while the bright sunlight shone in through the open 
window. Mr Ripley and Judge Mock sat directly in front of, 
and about four feet from, the canvas. In this position they 
watched the development of the picture. First the outline 
appeared, then disappeared. Then it came again, and con- 
tinued to grow brighter, life-like features filling in. The eyes 
were closed ; but to their surprise they suddenly opened, 
and gave an expression to the face that they felt that it ought 



438 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

to speak. In earth life the friend usually wore a Masonic pin. 
Mr Ripley desired it on the painting, and so made a mental, 
not verbal, request for it, and immediately it appeared upon 
the lapel of the coat, just as he used to wear it. All this occupied 
about twenty minutes. 

For a similar immediate response to a mental request 
see my experiences on pages 167, 325. 

The next is a testimony given en oath by eight persons 
who were present and saw the picture produced. 

Chesterfield, Indiana, 2.1st August 1909. 

State of Indiana, Madison County, S.S. 
Tom O'Neill, James Millspaugh, Lydia Jessup, Henry 
Bronnenberg, Rebecca M'Kee, J. M. Walker, S. J. Louiso 
and Lewis Johnson, being duly sworn, upon their oath depose 
and say : That on the 20th day of August 1909 they were 
present at a sitting held by the Bangs Sisters, under test 
conditions ; that these affiants witnessed that development 
of a portrait, which portrait they recognised as the portrait 
of Alex. P. M'Kee, a former member and Treasurer of the 
said Association ; that said picture was developed upon a 
canvas or stretcher on a frame, which stretcher and frame 
were selected by one of these affiants from an assortment of 
such articles, all similar in form and appearance, without any 
suggestion or indication from the said Bangs Sisters ; that said 
portrait developed upon said canvas or stretcher in a period 
of eight minutes within the full view of all of these affiants, 
in daylight ; and affiants further say that they are firmly con- 
vinced that said portrait was so developed by spirit powers 
solely and that no human earthly agency contributed to the 
development of said portrait. That said affiants recognise in 
said portrait an excellent likeness of the said Alex. P. M'Kee. 

Tom O'Neill. James Millspaugh. 

Lydia Jessup. Henry Bronnenberg. 

Rebecca L. M'Kee. J. M. Walker. 

S. J. Louiso. Lewi§ Johnson. 

Subscribed and sworn before me 
this 2 1 st day of August 1909, 

William Rowland, Notary Public. 
(Seal.) 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 439 

The following is an account of a demonstration of the 
power possessed by the Bangs Sisters which took place in 
public on the evening of 30th August 1908 at Chesterfield, 
and is taken from The Nuncie Morning Star : 

Upon a table on the stage was placed a frame with an 
opening large enough to hold an ordinary -sized crayon portrait 
mat. Behind the aperture was placed a coal-oil lamp. . . . 
The mats remained in position in full view of the spectators 
until the developed picture was completed. 

A few moments after the mats were placed in position the 
canvas assumed a mottled cloudy appearance, and gradually 
the outline bust form of a person appeared in the centre of the 
canvas. Gradually the picture became more distinct and the 
features were distinguishable, then the colouring of the hair 
and the face developed, and lastly the eyes apparently opened, 
and the picture of a girl about twelve years of age was com- 
pleted, and plainly distinguished by all. The work required a 
period of about twenty minutes, and when the eyes opened the 
spe tators cheered the young women. The picture was handed 
about for inspection. The Bangs Sisters are the only persons 
known to develop pictures in the manner described, and have 
produced portraits for many people in this city. The only 
explanation of their work given by the sisters is that spirit 
artists do the work. The picture thus obtained proved to be 
the daughter of a prominent Marion (Indiana) family. This 
was their first visit to Chesterfield. The mother wore round 
her neck, but hid from sight, a locket containing a photograph 
of her daughter almost duplicate in likeness of the picture 
obtained, but different in pose and position. The psychics 
had not seen the locket picture or any photo of the 
child. 

The following testimony is given by Professor Coates in 
Photographing the Invisible, page 305 , and is from Mrs Gertrude 
Breslau Hunt, who has lectured all over the United States. 
Writing from Norwood Park, Illinois, she says : 

I take pleasure in telling the story of my investigation into 
spirit phenomena, begun only three months ago, yet revealing 



440 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

so much. I was a sceptic, regarding the few people I knew 
who believed such things with pity and contempt. I am 
therefore anxious to make expiation for my former prejudice. 
After years of study and thought I had given up the belief in 
continued life after death, but last October a dear friend passed 
out under circumstances so terribly sad as to make his life a 
supreme tragedy. In this hour of anguish the thought came 
of the claims of the spirit philosophy, and I decided to in- 
vestigate, and finally decided upon getting a spirit photograph 
of my comrade. I learned that the only negative of the deceased 
was destroyed and that I held the only copy of the photo in 
this state. At the room of the Bangs Sisters I examined 
floor, table, windows and every part of the room, and selected 
a life-sized canvas from a lot of fifteen or twenty. It was 
placed in a window, and I sat facing the canvas. I did not 
remove my eyes from the canvas, and would stake everything 
I possess that no hand touched that canvas after I placed it in 
the bright light of the window, until the picture was finished. 
Three pairs of eyes showed on the canvas at once in different 
poses and places. The background appeared first as though 
successive layers of dust had been thrown on, then in a few 
minutes the whole face appeared, with the colours of life. I 
criticised the pose, and asked for a full-face view. The whole 
face faded out and was rapidly sketched again. I was re- 
quested to take the picture out and set it on the floor in such 
a light as it would be likely to have when finally placed. I 
did so, and remarked that the hair was too light ; and there, 
where it sat, I saw the shadows creep into the waves of hair and 
it darkened. I asked that more colour be put into the cheeks, 
and the canvas blushed to the tint it now bears. The sleeves 
of the robe were corrected, and in two hours the picture was 
complete ; and a competent artist has stated that he could 
not finish such a picture in less than three days, working eight 
hours each. 

The psychics did not know the name of the person, whether 
man or woman, had never seen or known Dr Burson, never 
saw the photograph, and had no chance to copy it. I am there- 
fore forced to conclude that life continues after death and that 
we may receive messages, and that this portrait is a spirit 
portrait. I have had many other convincing evidences, some 
of them in other cities where no one could possibly know any- 
thing of me. Nothing has brought me so much happiness. 



EVIDENCE OF PSYCHIC PHOTOGRAPHY 441 

Dr and Mrs E. H. Thurston give the following account of 
how they obtained the likeness of their daughter (Photo- 
graphing the Invisible, page 324) : — 

Hagarstown, Indiana, U.S.A., 
$th April 1910. 

Desiring a spirit portrait of our daughter, who passed into 
spirit life at the age of thirty, we decided to make a test. 
Visiting Chesterfield Camp, Indiana, we called upon the 
Bangs Sisters. Entering the room, and finding only three 
canvases, 1 selected two of them, took them out in the sunlight, 
in company with one of the Miss Bangs, exposed them for 
fifteen minutes to the strong rays of the noonday sun, examined 
the surface thoroughly to fully assure myself that they were 
not chemically prepared, at the same time to secretly mark 
them for identification. Returning to the room, I placed the 
canvases on the small table before a well-lighted north window, 
and by examination of table and surroundings convinced 
myself that everything was void of any and all mechanical 
apparatus. 

The Bangs Sisters, seated on each side of the table, merely 
supported the canvases in an upright position with one hand, 
myself and wife being seated directly in front of, and not more 
than two feet from them. After sitting a very short time, a 
dark shadow passed over the canvas, followed by the outline 
of the head and body ; then, to our wonderful amazement, the 
perfect features of our daughter appeared, with the eyes closed; 
a few more seconds, and the eyes opened, and before us was 
the beautiful spirit portrait of our deceased daughter, per- 
fectly lifelike in every feature, and which has been instantly 
recognised by all who knew her when in earth life. When the 
picture was completed, the identification marks previously 
spoken of showed that the canvas had not been tampered 
with in any way. 

While the portrait has much the appearance of pastel work, 
we have since removed particles of the material or substance 
of which the picture is made, and find it perfectly soluble in 
water, without imparting any colour whatever to the water, 
which is not the case in pastel work. 

The Bangs Sisters will ever have our highest regards for we 
believe they are thoroughly honest. 

Dr and Mrs H. E. Thurston. 



442 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

The last testimony comes from India from Babu Sheshir 
Kumar Ghose, a man of standing in Hindu society and 
lately honoured by the Indian Government. Author, 
man of affairs, head of several businesses, landed interests, 
proprietor of various publications and founder of the most 
influential newspaper in Bengal, he says of the picture 
of his son obtained through one of the Bangs Sisters, for 
only one was present on this occasion {Photographing the 
Invisible, page 321) : 

It was finished in exactly twenty minutes. In this delicate 
work of art no sign of brushwork is visible, no crudities as in 
portraits painted by competent artists. It was not done by 
the coarse hand of a material being, but by some means un- 
known to artists on earth. There is one little circumstance 
which suggests that the spirit of my son was the actual subject 
of the picture, and that is that the complexion is correctly 
given. The Hindus of the higher classes in Bengal have a 
peculiar complexion which has its distinctive characteristics. 
Therefore I conclude that the painting was from the spirit 
present {vide 430). 

Very many other testimonies are on record. The Bangs 
Sisters are unique in the possession of this extraordinary 
psychic gift. There is nothing else like it in the world. 

The production of recognised portraits of the departed 
whom the psychics never saw, the appearance on the pictures 
of details asked for mentally, and, finally, the opening of 
the eyes of the picture, constitute a series of marvels that 
defy all attempts to reproduce or explain by non-psychic 
means. 

Weighing up the whole evidence for these psychic pictures, 
both photographs and paintings, the only conclusion that 
will fit the evidence without introducing still greater 
difficulties is that they are the work of supernormal 
intelligences, produced by supernormal methods, and that 
they are the portraits and representations of human beings 
who once were incarnate but have now passed from this 
mortal life. 



XXII 

CONCERNING LEVITATIONS, PROOFING AGAINST FIRE, APPORTS, 
STRONG VIBRATIONS AND OTHER PSYCHIC PHENOMENA 

And the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven. — 
Ezekiel viii. 3. 

And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walk- 
ing on the sea. — -Matthew xiv. 25. 

And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the 
ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. — Matthew xiv. 29. 

And the iron did swim. — 2. Kings vi. 6. 

Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth of the 
midst of the fire . . . nor was an hair of their head singed, neither 
were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on 
them. — Daniel iii. 26, 27. 

Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his 
hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar : And he 
aid it upon my mouth. — Isaiah vi. 6, 7. 

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, 
and the house was filled with smoke. — Isaiah vi. 4. 

I NOW come to psychic phenomena which, while not 
evidences of human survival, are still important 
evidences of the existence of supernormal and dis - 
carnate intelligences controlling supernormal forces and 
powers. 

If it be argued that these things should have no place 
in a book dealing with the destiny of the human soul 
and with the relation of man to the (normally) unseen 
world, one can only point to the undoubted fact that such 
things are contained in both the Old and New Testaments, 
and constitute the chief events of some of their most 
interesting and important chapters. 

It is obvious that if it can be shown that similar happenings 
to those therein described happen to-day, even in connection 
with those phenomena which do not relate to survival after 
death, evidence is at once afforded of the existence and 
activity of similar excarnate intelligences and supernormal 

443 



444 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

powers in modern times as existed in the days of the 
prophets and of the Christ. 

Let us first consider the phenomenon of levitation, or the 
raising of a body, animate or inanimate, in the air without 
visible, tangible or sensible means of support. 

This is sufficiently remarkable when witnessed in con- 
nection with an inanimate body, but becomes positively 
awe-inspiring when the human body is the subject of the 
manifestation. 

The levitation of the human body has often been described 
as taking place in the histories of the lives of the saints, as, 
for instance, those recorded of St Teresa, of the Bishop of 
Valencia, and of many others. Until recently these were, 
in modern times, scouted as absurd fictions, but there is 
evidence of the best kind to show that these ancient accounts 
are based on facts. 

In 1697 one Margaret Rule is described as being levitated 
to the ceiling of her room. ... In 1760 Lord Elcho records 
that he heard sworn testimony to the phenomenon of levita- 
tion in Rome. Goethe refers to the fact of levitation in his 
Life of Phillipinari, while it is referred to in Buddhist and 
Neoplatonic writings, and has often been witnessed in India.* 

Only of comparatively late years has it been so attested 
by the observation of scientists and capable witnesses as 
to be established as a scientific fact. 

I will first give the testimony of the Master of Lindsay 
(Lord Crawford and Balcarres), the well-known astronomer 
and Fellow of the Royal Society. This evidence is con- 

* Louis Jacolliot, Chief Judge of the Chandenagur Tribunal, 
published a book in 1875 describing psychic phenomena — -material- 
isations, levitations, etc. — identical with those observed in Europe. 

The erection of an ordinary flexible rope (sometimes a thin cord) 
into the air, said rope being then climbed by a boy — -so often described 
by Indian travellers — -may very possibly be due to levitation. 
Photographs recently taken (June, 1917) by Lt. F. W. Holmes, V.C., 
Yorkshire Regiment, show the boy at the top of the rope in the air 
(the rope afterwards being wound round a man's waist), proving 
that the "jointed rod " and " hypnotised spectator " theories are 
not the explanations. 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 445 

firmed by Lord Adare, afterwards Earl of Dunraven, and 
Captain Wynne, who were present at the time and saw the 
whole thing as it occurred. He thus testifies before the 
Committee of the Dialectical Society : 

I saw the levitations in Victoria Street when Home floated 
out of the window. He first went into a trance and walked 
about uneasily ; then he went into the hall. While he was 
away I heard a voice whisper in my ear : " He will go out of 
one window and in at another." I was alarmed at the idea of 
so dangerous an experiment. I told the company what I had 
heard and we then waited for Home's return. Shortly after 
he entered the room I heard the window go up ; he went out 
of the window in a horizontal position, and I saw him outside 
the other window (that of the next room) floating in the air. 
It was eighty-five feet from the ground. There was no balcony 
along the window, but merely a strong course an inch and a 
half wide. 

He adds in another account : 

Lord Adare then went into the next room to look at the 
window from which he had been carried. It was raised about 
eighteen inches, and he expressed his wonder how Mr Home 
had been carried through so narrow an aperture. Home said, 
still entranced : "I will show you," and then with his back 
to the window he leaned back and was shot out of the aperture 
head first, his body rigid, and then returned quietly. This 
occurred at Ashley House, Victoria Street, on Dec. 16th, 18G8. 

Of other occasions Lord Crawford writes : 

Home was sitting next me. In a few minutes he said : 
" Keep quiet. I am going up." His foot then touched my 
shoulder. I then felt something like velvet touch my cheek, 
and on looking up I was surprised to find that he had carried 
with him an arm-chair which he held in his hand, and then 
floated round the room, pushing the pictures out of their 
places as he passed along the walls. They were far beyond 
the reach of a person standing on the ground. The light was 
sufficient to enable us to see clearly. 

Again he says : 

I once saw Home in full light standing in the air seventeen 
inches from the ground. I have no theory to explain these 



446 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

things. I have tried to find out how they were done, but the 
more I studied them the more satisfied I was that they could 
not be explained by mere mechanical trick. I have had the 
fullest opportunity for investigation. 

Levitation was experienced by Home on about one 
hundred different occasions At Adare Manor he was once 
carried nearly thirty yards in the air, at a height of from 
three to four feet above the ground. Home was on several 
occasions levitated to the ceiling in presence of various 
witnesses, and the Rev. Stainton Moses was also similarly 
levitated in his chair to a height of six feet. 

Sir William Crookes, alluding to the levitation at Ashley 
House given above, says : 

I have heard from the lips of the three witnesses of the most 
striking occurrence of this kind [the Earl of Dunraven, Lord 
Lindsay and Captain C. Wynne], their own most minute account 
of what took place. To reject the recorded evidence on this 
subject is to reject all human testimony whatever, for no fact 
in sacred or profane history is supported by a stronger array 
of proofs. 

Speaking of his own levitation experiences with Home, 
Sir William says : 

On three separate occasions I have seen him raised com- 
pletely from the floor of the room : once sitting in an easy- 
chair, once kneeling on the chair, and once standing. On 
each occasion I had full opportunity of watching the occurrence 
as it was taking place. 

He also says (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi., page 119) : 

Mr Home then walked to the open space in the room between 
Mrs I.'s chair and the sideboard and stood there quite upright 
and still. He then said : "I am rising. I am rising," when 
we all saw him rise from the ground slowly to a height of about 
six inches, remain there for about ten seconds, and then 
slowly descend. There was no stool or other thing near which 
could have aided him. Moreover, the movement was a smooth 
continuous glide upwards. 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 447 
Again, on page 126, he says : 

He [Mr Home] asked Mrs W. R. Crookes to remove the chair 
from under him as it was not supporting him. He was then 
seen to be sitting in the air supported by nothing visible. 

Levitation of the body was also experienced by the Rev. 
Stainton Moses, in whose presence also the levitation of 
objects was often observed. This latter phenomenon, 
though not so striking as that of the human body, is still 
very impressive. It has often been observed, both with 
noted psychics such as Home and also with many others of 
less note. Sir W. Crookes thus describes it in the presence 
of Home : 

On five separate occasions a heavy dining-table rose, from 
between a few inches to one and a half feet, off the floor under 
special circumstances which rendered trickery impossible. 

On another occasion he writes : 

The table now rose completely off the ground several times, 
whilst the gentlemen present took a candle, and kneeling down 
deliberately examined Mr Home's feet and knees and saw the 
three feet of the table quite off the ground. This was repeated 
until each observer expressed himself satisfied {Proceedings 
S.P.R., vol. vi., page 104). 

Again : 

The water-bottle and tumbler now rose up together, and 
we had answers to questions by their tapping together whilst 
floating in the air about eight inches above the table, and 
moving backwards and forwards from one to the other of the 
circle (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi., page 120). 

This shows the operations of a personality and intelligence 
governing the levitation of the object. I have been in- 
formed by an eye-witness that this floating of objects in 
the air and tapping together is sometimes seen in the 
presence of that marvellous young psychic, Miss Kathleen 



448 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Golligher, of Belfast, who is undoubtedly the most wonder- 
ful psychic for physical phenomena that has arisen in the 
British Isles since the days of the Cook sisters. Dr 
Crawford, who has been singularly fortunate in obtaining 
practically the monopoly of her services for some time 
past, has placed the reality of these wonderful levitations, 
in her presence, on record in his recently published work.* 

Speaking of the table levitations occurring recently in 
presence of Miss Golligher, he says that he has never yet 
seen the man who could prevent the table rising in the air 
by the exercise of all his strength, or who could prevent 
the table returning to the ground when the direction of the 
force was reversed. He states that the power exerted is 
equivalent to a hundredweight, dispelling all doubts as to 
the reality of psychic force. Once the table remained in the 
air for nearly five minutes, and defied the strength of a man 
to prevent it rising, or to force it to the ground. 

Sir William Barrett relates his experience with this 
most wonderful and gifted young psychic. He tells how he 
saw the table suspended eighteen inches in the air, no one 
touching it, and how he was unable to press the table down 
to the floor by the exercise of all his strength, and how, 
when he found that he could not do so, he got upon the 
table, which promptly threw him off ! After this the table 
turned upside down on the floor, and he was asked to lift 
it up, but was totally unable to move it. The table, 
to use his own words " appeared screwed down to the 
floor."! It is interesting to remark that Dr Crawford, 
after a long period of investigation, comes to the conclusion 
that these manifestations are spiritual in their nature and 
often caused by discarnate human beings. On this head 
he says : 

* The Reality of Psychic Phenomena. By W. J. Crawford, D.Sc. 
Watkins. 

f On the Threshold of the Unseen. By Sir W. Barrett, F.R.S. 
Trench, Trubner & Co. 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFFNGS, APPORTS 449 

I wish to state explicitly that I am personally satisfied 
the invisible operators are the spirits of human beings who 
have passed to the Beyond. 

That these manifestations are the work of discarnate 
spirits, many of whom have previously lived in the earth 
life, is the opinion to which I also personally came many 
years ago, as the result of extended experience and in- 
vestigation, and I do not think that any other opinion 
can be fairly arrived at by any person of intelligence who 
honestly, patiently and thoroughly investigates. 

Up to the present time I have never met anyone who, 
having made such honest and thorough investigation, was 
not convinced of the reality of the phenomena and of 
their spiritual origin. It is easy to cry fraud and delusion. 
Such a proceeding saves a world of trouble, and obviates 
the necessity for honest investigation and clear thinking. 

Mr H. D. Jencken, an English barrister, and M. R. I., 
who married one of the Fox sisters, says of this form of 
manifestation (Dialectical Society's Report) : 

I have seen the semi-grand piano at my house raised hori- 
zontally eighteen inches off the ground and kept suspended in 
the air for two or three minutes. I have also witnessed a 
square table lifted one foot off the ground, no one touching or 
near it at the time, a friend present seated on the carpet and 
watching the phenomenon all the time. I have also seen a 
table lifted clear overhead six feet off the ground, but what 
may seem more remarkable, I have witnessed an accordeon 
suspended in space for from ten to twenty minutes and played 
by an invisible agency. (See Sir W. Crookes' similar experi- 
ence, page 272.) 

The most remarkable instance of this kind I ever witnessed 
was at the house of Dr Gully (father of the late Speaker of the 
House of Commons), when I heard three voices (no visible 
agencies being present) chanting a hymn accompanied by 
music played on an accordeon suspended in the air, eight or 
nine feet off the ground. 

I have known messages spelt out by the tilting of the semi- 

2 F 



450 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

grand piano, accompanied by loud raps, no one at the time 
being within several feet of the instrument. 

President Lincoln witnessed similar levitations of the 
grand piano in his own house, and added his own weight to 
that of the instrument in an unavailing attempt to prevent 
the levitations. 

Here is the account : 

Mr Laurie suggested that Mrs Miller (the psychic ) should 
place her hand on the instrumeut, standing at arm's-length 
from it. In this position the piano rose and fell a number of 
times at her bidding. The President now said, with a quaint 
smile: "I think we can hold down this instrument," where- 
upon he climbed upon it, sitting with his legs dangling over 
the side, as also did Mr Somes, Mr S. P. Kase, and a soldier in 
the uniform of a major from the army of the Potomac. The 
piano, notwithstanding this enormous added weight, continued 
to wobble about until the sitters were glad to get off. Mr Somes 
remarked : " When I relate to my acquaintances, Mr President, 
what I have seen to-night, they will say : ' You were psycho- 
logised and you did not really see it.' ' Mr Lincoln quietly 
replied : " You should bring such a person here and when the 
piano seems to rise have him slip his foot under the leg and be 
convinced by the weight of evidence resting upon his under- 
standing. 

Heavy tables have been raised in the air with men 
seated upon them. Sometimes lighter tables are levitated 
almost to the ceiling. The most dramatic instance of this 
type of manifestation (high levitation of inanimate objects) 
on record occurred in the presence of the Fox sisters when 
they were being tested by a committee appointed to try 
their powers. No manifestations had occurred during the 
morning, and the gentlemen of the committee, well-known 
men of education and good standing — thinking they were 
triumphant and that none could occur, well pleased with 
themselves, ordered in a good dinner to which they invited 
the sisters, and all sat down around a large and heavy 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 451 

table. They joked and poked fun at the sisters, who were 
overwhelmed with vexation. Suddenly, when the merri- 
ment was at its height, the table shuddered and trembled, 
and creaked ominously, then it raised itself at one end, and 
immediately soared, with all the plates and dishes upon it, 
nearly to the ceiling, to the astonishment and consternation 
of all present, many of whom incontinently fled. 

Mr Coleman, giving evidence before the Dialectical 
Society, says of another occasion when Home was present : 

We all saw a wreath floating around without any visible 
support. It came to me and I placed it upon my head. The 
table then gradually rose from the ground and it became neces- 
sary for us to stand up ; it continued to ascend until it touched 
the ceiling, quite out of reach of all except myself, the tallest 
of the party. It then as gradually descended and resumed its 
original position with no more sound than if it had been a 
snowflake. 

The Master of Lindsay, afterwards Lord Crawford and 
Balcarres, the well-known astronomer and Fellow of the 
Royal Society, says of one of his experiences in the house 
of Mr Jencken, the barrister, in Norwood : 

While we were at dinner in full daylight a chair came up to 
the table with a rush from a distance of about twelve feet. 
Home was very much startled at this. We went on eating 
our dinner, when suddenly the table began to vibrate strongly 
and then suddenly rose in the air till the top of the table became 
level with my face as I sat. I should think that would give 
an elevation of fourteen or fifteen inches. It remained sus- 
pended for about thirty seconds and slowly sank. The table 
is, I think, mahogany and about four feet square. During, 
the whole time there were knocks in all parts of the room 
{Dialectical Society's Report, small edition, page 206). 

He also says of another occasion : 

The same evening Home went to the piano and began playing 
upon it. He called to us to come and stand round him and it. 



452 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

I was next to him. I had one hand on his chair and the other 
on the piano, and while he played both his chair and the piano 
rose about three inches in the air and then settled down 
again. 

On another occasion he relates that after the piano had 
risen four inches off the ground — 

The notes were struck though the piano was locked and the 
key taken away. 

Mr Thomas Shorter, giving evidence before the Dialectical 
Society, says : 

I have seen repeatedly a table incline forward to an angle 
of 45 or more, the lamp, water-bottle, inkstand, pencils, etc., 
remaining on it as if they were part of it. I have seen a table 
with the psychic (a delicate female) touching it with the tips 
of her fingers rise off the floor, and answers telegraphed by its 
movements, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of two strong 
men to hold it down (cf. the recent experiences with Miss 
K. Golligher). 

At the close of our meetings, when we sang, as soon as we 
had sung the first note the table rose in the air without any of 
our hands being on it, and commenced beating time like a baton 
in the hands of a music master, and at Dr Dixon's, 25 Bedford 
Row, on the doctor playing, the table rose from the floor and 
kept up rhythmical motion to the music as long as the air 
was played. 

The Rev. H. Douglas, Rector of Edmond Chapel, Rutland, 
testifies to similar phenomena in the presence of Home, 
(there are scores of similar testimonies on record), and we 
have had levitations in the course of our remarkable psychic 
experiences at Weston, indirect levitations of the body, and 
direct ones of inanimate objects. The one and only in- 
direct levitation of the body occurred on Tuesday, 8th 
October 1910. 

My wife was sleeping in a small room next to the nursery 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 453 

with the baby. Time : somewhere about 11.30 p.m., and 
a lamp was burning on the mantelpiece. She had not been 
in bed long, when, without a moment's warning, the bed 
was lifted at the foot until it was quite eighteen inches off 
the floor, and she could only just see the top of the dressing- 
table above the bed-clothes. It then fell with a crash, and 
was instantly raised again to the same height. My wife 
sat up in bed, and immediately the same figure of a man 
appeared by the bedside that she saw a few days after 
baby was born (vide page 383) and regarded her for a 
moment. He then turned and walked clean through the 
panels of the closed door into the nursery. 

On another occasion, on 25th June 1915, my daughter 
Dorothy and the servant Lydia were in the nursery in 
broad daylight (11 a.m.) and several yards from the beds. 
They were both standing in the doorway, and close together. 
Suddenly one of the beds, a heavy iron one, four feet six 
inches wide, raised itself into the air until the foot of the 
bed was lifted quite two feet and the castors were on a level 
with the top of the bed next to it. It remained raised thus 
in the air without visible support for a few seconds, and then 
fell with a loud crash upon the floor. They could see the 
floor clearly underneath the bed, and saw that there was no 
one under it. Besides bedding it had four straw mattresses 
upon it, and was a heavy weight. I find that it requires 
a strong exertion to lift it as high as it was observed to 
rise when no one visible was near it ! ! 

Another remarkable spontaneous levitation occurred on 
8th October 1911, in daylight and in the presence of four 
witnesses. It was preceded by the sound of a voice (words 
indistinguishable), then by loud knocks on the table and 
on the walls of the room, and a sound like the rustling of 
a silk dress all round the walls. The knocks spelt out 
the initials of a parishioner, recently deceased, and an 
intelligible message. The table, a heavy deal kitchen table 
four feet by three feet and weighing sixty pounds, rose in 



454 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

the air to the height of nearly a foot and remained sus- 
pended in the air for quite half-a-minute before subsiding 
to the floor again. This was clearly and distinctly visible 
to four witnesses in daylight. The levitation of a table 
was observed repeatedly by Messrs Carrington, Fielding 
and Baggally, all expert investigators, during their experi- 
ments with Eusapia Paladino in 1908, and there are 
instantaneous photographs of table levitations in Flam- 
marion's Les Forces Naturelles Inconnues, pages 210, 234, 
496. 

There are scores of testimonies on record similar to those 
I have here presented, given by persons thoroughly capable 
of critical observation, and as Sir William Crookes truly 
says, this phenomenon is as well evidenced as any fact in 
sacred or profane history. Let us turn for a moment to 
that sacred history for instances of levitation of the 
body. 

Ezekiel viii. 3 : 

The spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven. 

Matthew xiv. 25 : 

And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, 
walking upon the sea. 

Matthew xiv. 29 : 

And when Peter was come down ... he walked on the 
water, to go to Jesus. 

Here are levitations of the human body, that of the 
prophet entirely suspended in the air, those of Jesus and 
Peter on the surface of water, all contrary to normal 
experience and to the force of gravitation. 

In Ezekiel iii. 14 we read : 

So the spirit lifted me up, and took me away. 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 455 

And again in Acts viii. 39 and 40 we are informed that : 

The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch 
saw him no more. . . . 

But Philip was found at Azotus. 

In both these cases the impression given is that the 
levitation was over considerable distances — several miles. 
Home was seen by Lord Lindsay, Lord Adare and others 
to float many yards in the air. Obviously the same prin- 
ciples that govern a movement of twenty yards are applicable 
to a movement of miles. Dr Abram Wallace, M.D., gives 
an account of the transference of a person over a long 
distance, and it is vouched for by eight witnesses, in Light 
for 17th August 1918. If one case be true, why not the 
other ? 

I pass over the levitation of the materialised body of the 
Christ witnessed on Mount Olivet, as we are dealing with 
cases of levitation of the mortal body (vide 115, 279). 

Now for an instance of the levitation of an inanimate 
object. 

2 Kings vi. 6 : 

And the man of God said, Where fell it ? And he shewed 
him the place. And he cut down a stick and cast it in thither ; 
and the iron did swim. 

This is levitation in water, but as truly levitation as the 
modern levitations in air. The conclusion is irresistible. 
Similar effects argue similar causes ; the same forces 
which raised the iron in the days of the prophet raise in- 
animate objects now ; the same forces which raised the 
prophet's body in the air, and maintained the Christ and 
Peter in a walking position upon the water in the distant 
past cause men's bodies to float in the air to-day. 

Some men will probably at this stage put the old question : 
" Cui bono P " 

What is the good of these levitations of the body and of 
inanimate objects ? What have they got to do with religion ? 



456 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

The good of it is to prove the existence of spiritual powers 
and of spiritual beings, to show us that the spirit world 
is objective and real and that spirits are not " immaterial 
entities," as the dictionaries tell us, but capable of con- 
trolling and entering into relations with matter. These 
things occurred not only in the lives of the prophets, but 
also in the lives of the Christ and his apostles, therefore if 
the questioner be consistent he will have to put the same 
question to Christ, apostles, and prophets. 

I pass now to another impressive form of psychic mani- 
festation, the proofing of the human body against fire. 
Sir William Crookes' testimony is first in importance as 
that of an illustrious chemist and physicist. Speaking 
of these fire experiences with Home, he says, under date 
Wednesday, 9th May 1871 : 

Mr Home went up to the candle on a side table and passed 
his fingers backwards and forwards through the flame so slowly 
that under ordinary circumstances he must have been severely 
burnt. He then held his fingers up, smiled, and nodded as if 
pleased. 

Mr Home went to the fire and after stirring it about with 
his hand took out a red-hot piece nearly as big as an orange, 
and putting it on his right hand covered it over with his left, 
so as to almost completely enclose it, and then blew into the 
small furnace thus extemporised until the lump of coal was 
nearly white hot, and then drew my attention to the lambent 
flame which was flickering over the coal and licking round his 
fingers ; he fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent manner, 
held up the coal in front, and said : "Is not God good, are 
not His laws wonderful ? " 

Going again to the fire he took out another hot coal with 
his hand, and holding it up, said to me : "Is not that a beautiful 
large bit ? " 

April 28th. — At Mr Home's request, while he was entranced 
I went with him to the fireplace in the back room. I stood 
close to the fire and stooped down to it when he put his hands 
in. He very deliberately pulled the lumps of coal off, one at 
a time, with his right hand, and touched one which was bright 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 457 

red. He then said : " The power is not strong on Dan's hand 
as we have been influencing the handkerchief most." Mr 
Home then waved the handkerchief about in the air two or 
three times, folded it up and laid it upon his hand like a cushion, 
putting his other hand into the fire he took out a large lump of 
cinder, red-hot at the lower part, and placed it on the hand- 
kerchief. Under ordinary circumstances it would have been 
in a blaze. In about half a minute he took it off, saying : 
" As the power is not strong if we leave it longer it will burn " 
{Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi., page 103). 

The Master of Lindsay (Lord Crawford and Balcarres) 
says, in his report to the Dialectical Society : 

I have frequently seen Home when in a trance go to the fire 
and take out large red-hot coals and carry them about in his 
hands and put them inside his shirt. Eight times I myself 
have held a red-hot coal in my hands without injury when it 
scorched my face on raising my hand. Once I wished to see 
if it really would burn, and I said so, and then touched with 
the middle finger of my right hand and got a blister as big as 
a sixpence. I instantly asked him to give me the coal, and I 
held the part that burnt me in the middle of my hand for 
three or four minutes, without the least inconvenience. 

A few weeks ago I was at a sitting (with Home). Seven held 
a red-hot coal without pain. Of the seven four were ladies. 

Miss Douglas, another witness, says : 

Mr Home held the hot coals a long time in his hand. 

Mrs Honeywood gives similar testimony, and Mr H. D. 
Jencken, barrister-at-law, giving evidence before the 
Dialectical Society, says : 

I have myself witnessed the fire test many times. I have 
seen Lord Adare hold in the palm of his hand a burning hot 
coal which Mr Home had placed there, so hot that the mere 
momentary contact with my finger caused a burn. 

At Mr S. C. Hall's a large lump of burning coal was placed 



458 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

on his head by Mr Home, and only within these last few days 
a metal bell heated to redness in the fire was placed on a lady's 
hand without causing injury. At Mrs Henning's house in 
Norwood I have seen Mr Home place his face into the flames 
of the grate, the flame points penetrating through his hair 
without causing injury. 

Lord Lindsay was present with seven other persons 
when Home placed the red-hot coal on Mr S. C. Hall's 
head. Mr S. C. Hall was the editor of The Art Journal. 
Mrs Hall thus describes the incident in a letter to Lord 
Dunraven : 

Mr Home rose from his chair, walked slowly to the fireplace, 
held his hands over the fire and then drew out of the fire with 
his fingers a large lump of red and blazing coal — not from the 
top but from the middle of the fire. He held it in both hands, 
advanced to the table at which we were seated, and placed the 
coal, red and blazing as it was, on Mr Hall's head, ruffling his 
white hair about it. 

When it had remained there more than a minute he removed 
it and offered it to the wife of a clergyman who was present. 
She drew back. Home murmured : " Little faith." He then 
tendered it to me [Mrs Hall] and placed it on my open hand. 
I felt it to be warm but not hot. He did the same by another 
of our guests. Before he took it back to the fireplace he put 
it on a sheet of paper. The paper was singed. There was not 
a hair of Mr Hall's head singed, but when he combed it in the 
morning he combed out about fifty specks of cinder dust the 
blazing coal had flung off. 

A lady of position, giving evidence before the Dialectical 
Society, testifies to the proofing of delicate dress fabrics 
as follows : — 

Home again proceeded to the fireplace, took out a red-hot 
coal, then brought it to me and dropped it on my white muslin 
dress, where it remained for some seconds as we all feared to 
touch it, it was so hot. My dress, though made of the finest 
muslin, was not ignited, and we even failed to detect the slight- 
est trace or mark of any kind after the closest examination. 



LEVITATTONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 459 

Lord Lindsay was present with several others and wit- 
nessed this, and signed a statement confirming it (page 457). 

Personally I have never had the good fortune to witness 
this phenomenon of the proofing of the human body 
against fire by psychic power, but I have recently talked 
with those who have. I have also seen in broad daylight 
a materialised psychic figure come out of the clear red fire 
in my study — door and window being shut — and, after strik- 
ing me on the arm, vanish in the middle of the floor. This 
was on 18th April 1918. On 5th June following my wife 
saw the same apparition come out of a clear red fire in the 
kitchen. It touched her strongly on the face and then 
vanished ! ! (381). Cf. Dan. iii. 25. 

It is very evident that, beyond all possibility of mistake 
or doubt, we have here phenomena practically identical 
with those recorded in Isaiah vi. 6, 7 ; Dan. iii. 25, 27 : 

Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal 
in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the 
altar : And he laid it upon my mouth. 

In one case it is a materialised spirit who brings the coal 
from the fire, but the said coal is laid on the prophet's 
mouth and similar guardian spirit powers were at work to 
prevent him being injured as were at work preventing the 
burning of Home's and Lord Lindsay's hands. 

Mr Hall's wonderful experience where neither was his 
head burnt nor a hair of his head singed recalls at once the 
classical instance of Daniel and his companions in the fiery 
furnace. 

- And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's 
counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men upon whose 
bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head 
singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire 
had passed on them." — Daniel iii. 27. 

I have heard orthodox laity roundly deny the possibility 
of this event and I have also heard orthodox ministers 



460 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

say that this and other marvels in the Bible must be ex- 
plained " parabolically " ! ! Those conversant with psychic 
powers and the verities of the spirit world know that this 
chapter is a record of fact. 

I come now to other wonderful narratives in Scripture 
which are confirmed by the psychic experiences of modern 
times. The first is the release of Peter out of prison by 
spiritual power. The narrative is contained in Acts xii. 
It will be necessary to dwell especially on the following 
verse : — 

And he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, 
Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. 

Note the words fell off as though they were melted or 
dissolved. This wonderful power over matter possessed 
by spirits has often been observed and carefully recorded, 
as well by others as by myself and the members of my 
household. Obviously the power that can cause chains to 
jail off from a prisoner's hands is of a similar nature to 
that which can pass a solid iron ring, or the strong and 
solid back of a chair, on to a man's arm when his hand is 
firmly held by that of another person, or can tie knots 
in a sealed endless cord, or in an endless circle of leather 
cut out of the solid sheet, as witnessed by Professors Zollner, 
Scheibner, Weber, and Fechner and described in Zollner's 
Transcendental Physics, and also on another occasion by 
the Hon. A. Aksakoff. 

Mr A. Smedley, an engineer and ironfounder of great 
experience, describes his experience of the ring phenomena 
as follows {Reminiscences, page 42) : — 

We arrived twenty minutes before either the psychic or 
anyone else arrived. We were shown into the room. On the 
mantelshelf was an iron ring made of about three-eighths 
round iron. It was reported that the iron ring was sometimes 
put on the arm or wrist of one of the sitters after all had joined 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 461 

hands. I confess that my scepticism on this point was very 
strong. 

We were strangers among strangers and in a strange room. 
I suspected a trick. Perhaps the ring had a secret spring or 
joint in it (like conjurers' trick rings. — C.L.T.). It was simply 
impossible for a sound iron ring to be put on a person's arm 
unless passed over the hand. Now I am going to detect this 
trick. So I reasoned with myself, without making a single 
remark even to Mr Adshead. I examined the ring very care- 
fully and found it to be perfectly sound, the place where it had 
been welded being plainly seen. I held it in my fingers and 
struck it with a bit of steel and found it sound as a bell. " Ah," 
I thought, " there may be two or more rings but I will find out 
if another is substituted for this." So, taking out my knife 
and using the sharp edge as a saw for some time I succeeded 
in making a slight mark inside the ring and quietly laid it 
down on the mantel. 

At the appointed time eight of us sat, I on the psychic's 
left side and having hold of his left hand. The ring and several 
other articles were placed on the table. All joined hands, 
making a complete circle. My eyes were never off the ring 
until I had firmly grasped the psychic's hand in such a manner 
as to prevent the possibility of such a small ring being passed 
from his arm on to mine. The ring was only just large enough 
to pass over my hand when it was at liberty. We had not 
sat long before small lights began to flit about the room. 
A bell accompanied by a star-like light left the table and 
floated about the room above our heads, ringing as it went. 
Other articles floated about in the same way 'A voice was 
heard above and about us. It drew near and spoke in my 
ear. Small childlike hands touched my cheeks. Just before 
the close of this part of the proceedings something cold touched 
my left ivrist. 

' When the gas was lit the iron ring was found on my arm, 
and a great heavy arm-chair stood on the centre of the table. 
Taking the ring off my arm I was astonished to find that it 
was the same one I had secretly marked ! 

This experience has often been repeated, sometimes a 
chair being found on the arm, the hands all the time being 
tightly grasped. At Weston we have several times observed 



462 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

the apparent passage of articles through the walls and 
ceilings, which articles we have afterwards picked up and 
found to be real. 

In these extraordinary phenomena we have the explana- 
tion of the means whereby Peter's chains " dropped off 
from his hands " nineteen hundred years ago. 

We come now to the second great wonder of this mighty 
deliverance by the direct intervention of spirit power. 

Acts xii. io. 

When they were past the first and the second ward, they came 
unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city ; which opened to 
them of his own accord [avTo/xarrj automatically] : and they 
went out, . . . and forthwith the angel departed from him. 

For the iron gate to open " of its own accord " to let Peter 
and the angel out, the fastenings of the gate, its bolts and 
bars must have in some way been withdrawn and force 
applied to swing the gate open. 

Exactly how this was accomplished it is impossible to 
say, as no details of the fastenings of the gate are given, but 
that such opening could take place I am certain from the 
fact that something very similar occurred in my vicarage 
at Weston on 26th November 1910. At 4.30 p.m. on that 
day I locked the doors of my study and of the dining-room, 
the keys of which were special and unlike any others in the 
house, and which I carried in my pocket. Before locking 
the rooms I searched them thoroughly, as extraordinary 
manifestations had been occurring in them, and made sure 
that the windows were fast. After locking the doors / very 
carefully tried them, to make sure that each one was truly 
locked, then for additional security I also shot the slide bolts 
at top and bottom of each door, and I did not leave the 
house until thoroughly satisfied that both doors were 
securely fastened and the rooms safe from any mortal 
invasion. I then went to post my letters and was absent 
from the house for fifteen minutes. On returning I found 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 463 

my household in great alarm, my wife, mother and the 
servant being all much frightened. 

My wife informed me that a few minutes after I had gone 
out she was walking along the passage towards the dining- 
room intending to get something from the room, not know- 
ing that I had locked the door ; the servant Mary was 
following close behind her. 

As she approached the dining-room door she noticed my 
mother in the act of descending the main staircase and 
within about two and a half yards from the said door, 
my wife being at that moment about three yards from it, 
and the servant just behind her. Suddenly there was a 
loud rushing sound like a great wind, followed instantly 
by a great crash upon the door as though someone had 
been thrown violently against it. At the same instant as 
the crash sounded the door burst open and was flung wide 
to the back, showing the interior of the room. All three 
persons, my wife, my mother and the servant, heard and 
saw this occur. My wife and the maid ran back down the 
passage in great alarm, and as they ran a piece of wood was 
violently stabbed or run through my wife's hair and left 
sticking there. 

On recovering from their fright and returning to the 
room they found several chairs were overthrown and other 
articles moved. 

On examining the door which they had left untouched 
I found it wide to the back, and to my astonishment found 
the two bolts and the lock bolt sticking out from the side of 
the door, just as though the door were bolted and locked. 
This amazed me exceedingly, for I had carefully locked the 
door, and tried it again and again before going out, and the 
key was in my pocket at that moment. Before we could 
shut the door, I had to take the key out of my pocket and 
" unlock the door " and cause the lock bolt to go into 
its place in the lock case ! ! 

I made the most careful examination of the door jamb 



464 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

and the metal sockets sunk therein, which receive the 
sliding bolts and the lock-bolt, but found them perfect, and 
uninjured in any way. And yet in an instant, with a great 
roar and crash this locked and bolted door had been torn 
open ! ! Furthermore, on going to my study and unlocking 
its door with the other key taken from my pocket, I found 
the room all in disorder, articles being displaced and strewn 
all about. The windows of both rooms were securely 
fastened and could not be opened from the outside. 

This marvellous experience shows unmistakably how a 
gate, or a door, can be caused " to open of its own accord " 
by forces other than those under mortal control and con- 
firms in a striking manner the dramatic incident related as 
having occurred during the escape of Peter. 

Another manifestation of spirit power met with in both 
Old and New Testaments is the fetching or providing of 
articles not previously in the place to which they are 
brought. A typical instance is found in 1 Kings xix. 5, 6. 

Then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. 
And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the 
coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and 
drink. 

This is a phase of psychic manifestation often witnessed 
in modern times, and very many cases are on record. 

Sir William Crookes describes how a bell was brought 
into a room — the door and window being closed — from 
another room in his house. 

In the Report of the Dialectical Society an account is 
given of a test sitting at which were present Mr Adolphus 
Trollope, Mrs Trollope, Miss Blayden and Colonel Harvey. 
The psychic was undressed and re-dressed in the presence 
of Mrs Trollope, every article of clothing being carefully 
examined. At the sitting both hands of the psychic were 
firmly held and the doors were locked and the windows 
fastened. In about ten minutes all . cried out that they 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 465 

smelt flowers, and immediately a shower of flowers 
came and the psychic's arms and hands and those of 
Mr Trollope were found covered with jonquil flowers. 
The smell of them was overpowering. Had even a small 
bunch of jonquils been in the room or secreted on the person 
of anyone present, it would have been detected by the 
smell at once. 

At another sitting with the same psychic, Mrs Guppy, 
there first came a shower of flowers when the psychic's 
hands were held and ten minutes afterwards an awful 
crash was heard on the table, as though the chandelier had 
fallen. It was not the chandelier but a large lump oj ice, 
a foot long and one and a half inches thick. The room 
was very warm and it began to melt immediately. This 
was more than one hour after the beginning of the sitting, 
in which time the ice would have melted had it been in 
the room. The late Archdeacon Colley had many experi- 
ences of these " apports," as they are termed, and I have 
had the good fortune to witness some marvellous spontaneous 
ones, under test conditions and in a brilliant light. Very 
many apports have been witnessed by the members of my 
household, but I will confine myself to a few of the most 
interesting. 

Tuesday, 1st November 1910. — Mother alone in her bed- 
room in my vicarage at Weston. At n a.m. the room door 
opened and a long white arm was thrust through the open- 
ing. My mother sprang instantly to the door, but no one 
was there. At 11.30 the door opened again and a delicate 
hand was thrust in and waved what seemed to be a muslin 
handkerchief. Again no one was found at the door, nor 
was anyone upstairs. Mother called for the other members 
of the household, who were all below stairs, and in answer 
to her call, my wife, my son Herschel, my daughters Marjorie 
and Sylvia, and the servant, Mary, all ran up to her. While 
she was describing to them how the hand waved all saw a 
book on_the mantelpiece p roje ct itself at her. It soared 
2 G 



466 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

for a distance of about two yards and hit her. The book 
was replaced on the mantelpiece and all stood away and 
watched it. It was again thrown down on to the floor and 
a papier mache tray, also on the mantelpiece, projected itself 
on the floor, no one touching or being near either of these 
articles. At 2 p.m. the door once more opened, and from the 
top of the door there shot a long stream of white cloudy 
stuff. This was projected towards mother, who was lying 
in bed, the distance from the door to her pillow being 
four and a quarter yards. This extraordinary phenomenon 
looked like a tube of cloudy material and floated in the air. 
As it drew near to mother's pillow it slowed down, and when 
close to her she shrank away from it. At this moment 
something dropped from the end of the tube, which was 
close to her, on to the pillow, and the tube of cloudy material 
then floated back to the top of the door and vanished. 
Thinking that the article which had dropped from it was a 
ball of wool, mother picked it up, and found to her amaze- 
ment that it was an egg. She instantly sprang to the door, 
but found no one upstairs. 

At 5.15 p.m. mother and my daughter Sylvia were in the 
room. The door again opened and a white hand was 
thrust in and waved something white. Both saw it, but 
no one was found at the door. 

A most marvellous series of psychic happenings occurred 
on this day, but this conveying of an egg on a long whisp 
of cloudy substance was one of the most wonderful we have 
ever experienced. At the time there were no eggs in the 
house, and whence this came we do not know. 

Sunday, 13th November 1910. — Mother had sustained a 
cut on the head, and she, my wife and I were all in the 
dining-room at 9.20 p.m. We were all close together, 
mother seated in a chair, self and wife standing. No one 
else was in the room. My wife was in the act of parting 
mother's hair with her fingers to examine the cut, and I was 
looking on. At that instant I happened to raise my eyes 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 467 

and I saw something issue from a point close to the ceiling 
in the corner of the room over the window and distant from 
my wife (who had her back to it) three and a quarter 
yards, and four and a quarter yards from myself, facing it. 
It shot across the room close to the ceiling, and struck the 
wall over the piano, upon which it then fell, making the 
strings vibrate, and so on to the floor on which it rolled. I 
ran and picked it up, and found, to my astonishment, that 
it was a jar oj ointment which mother used especially for 
cuts and bruises and which she kept locked up in her ward- 
robe. The intention was evident, the ointment was for the 
wound. 

I saw it apparently come through the wall, near the ceil- 
ing, and this with no one within three and a quarter yards 
of the place. The room is over nine feet high and was 
brilliantly lighted by a 100 candle-power lamp, and the 
door and window were shut, the latter fastened and in- 
capable of being opened from the outside. 

Monday, 28th November. — About 12 p.m. mother's 
keys (a heavy bunch) disappeared mysteriously from 
her pocket and, in spite of a careful search, could not 
be found. 

About 6 p.m. my mother, wife and self were in the dining- 
room. The door and window were shut, and no other 
person was in the room, which was brilliantly lighted. 
We were all together on the hearthrug, my wife standing 
an front of the fire, mother seated, while I stood facing my 
wife on mother's right. We were talking about the 
mysterious disappearance of the keys. 

Suddenly I saw something bright coming swiftly through 
the air from the direction of the corner opposite the door 
and high up towards the ceiling, and so from that part of 
the room when there is neither door nor window, nor any 
opening in the wall. The bright thing rushed through 
the air and struck my wife on the coil of hair at the back 
of her head. It came with such force that it bounced from 



468 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

her head to a distance of nearly three and a half yards from 
where she stood. My wife uttered a loud cry of alarm, 
due to the shock and surprise, but owing to the thick mass 
of hair intervening, she was not hurt in the least. I instantly 
ran and picked the object up, when, to our amazement, we 
found that it was .the bunch of keys missed from my mother's 
pocket since noon, and of which we had been talking when 
they were thus projected into the room. I am as certain 
of the fact that these keys came out of the air, from a part 
of the room where there was no mortal presence, as I am 
of any fact in my existence, and am prepared to make this 
and my other statements of like nature on oath before any 
notary public in the land. 

The apparent passage of objects through the walls and 
ceilings has many times been observed by myself and the 
various members of my household. On two occasions an 
article composed of glass and metal was observed to float 
lightly down from the ceiling just like a leaf on a summer's 
breeze. This extraordinary delicacy in conveying things 
breakable has often been observed, and was illustrated 
in a remarkable manner on 4th March 191 1, when my 
wife, my mother and the servant Ida, being all together in 
the hall, saw an object falling down the well of the staircase, 
apparently coming from the top story. It fell on to the 
stone floor in the hall, no carpet being on that part. On 
picking it up they found that it was an American alarum 
clock, one of those circular ones in a nickel case. 

When picked up it was found to be undamaged, and still 
going, and the glass not broken, and it continued going in 
perfect order. It had come from the nursery on the third 
floor, and was seen to fall at least sixteen feet down the well 
of the stairs on to the flagstones in the hall. I was close 
at hand in my study, and ran up to the nursery instantly, 
but found all the children in that sound, deep sleep which 
one associates with the young. The elder servant had 
left and there was no other person above stairs. Under 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 469 

ordinary circumstances, and falling normally, the clock 
would have been completely wrecked. 

On another occasion (17th January 191 1) a shower of 
articles came apparently through the ceiling and fell upon 
the tea-table, in the presence of six witnesses, and in a 
good light. On nth November 1913 a stick three feet 
ten inches long came slowly through the solid plaster 
ceiling in presence of my daughter Marjorie and the servant, 
in full lamplight, and fell on the table, leaving no trace of 
its passage; and again, on 29th January 1911, a solid 
article came apparently through the ceiling in our bedroom, 
in presence of myself and wife, in broad daylight, and 
slowly descended on to the pillow. All these objects 
proved to be objective and real when we came to pick 
them up. These phenomena have often been observed 
in the presence of powerful psychics, or where psychic 
influences have been strong. Robert Dale Owen, the 
cultured United States Consul at Naples, and an ardent 
materialist until turned from his materialism by the force 
of these evidences, describes how on one occasion he and 
six others saw a beautiful female figure emerge from the 
wall of a long drawing-room, glide to where they were sitting, 
drop into his hand what proved to be a rose, and disappear 
through the wall at the opposite end of the room. 

The following remarkable experience shows how an 
apport was brought about, in response to my unspoken 
thought. On Sunday, 29th January 191 1, I was returning 
alone from morning service. Earlier in the day I had been 
informed that a person whom I knew to be bitterly hostile 
to psychic things had had an accident necessitating the 
shooting of his horse. As I toiled up the very steep hill 
leading to the Vicarage, distant over a mile, I amused 
myself by thinking what an interesting thing it would be 
if this sceptic's horse could manifest its presence to him, as 
my aunt's dog had done to us (page 158) by the sound of 
its hoofs and the fall of one of its shoes on his table. I 



470 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

smiled to myself at this quaint conceit, and it forthwith 
passed from my mind. I did not utter a word aloud or 
meet anyone on my journey home. On arriving I went 
straight upstairs to my mother's room, she being the first 
person to whom I spoke. Before I could address her she 
said mysteriously : " I have something for you." She 
then informed me that about a quarter of an hour previ- 
ously she had heard a tremendous noise on the second 
flight of stairs. Something heavy bumped and banged 
down the stairs, and then bumped along the passage toward 
the door of her room. She at once went into the passage 
and finding no one upstairs began to search for the thing 
which had caused the noise. At last she trod upon it and 
nearly twisted her ankle. As she narrated this to me she 
had her hand behind her back, and in conclusion said : 
" What do you think it was ? " 

I could not guess. " This," she said, and to my un- 
bounded astonishment held up a horseshoe ! ! 

My unspoken thoughts had been read by one of those 
normally invisible beings that surround us, and carried into 
effect in my own house within a few minutes of their 
expression ! (146, 160) 

Many instances of the bringing of large quantities of 
flowers and fruit are on record. It is evident from these 
experiences that the spirit powers which could and did 
bring a cake of bread and a cruse of water to the prophet 
are still active and with mankind to-day, as in days of old. 
The constant replenishing of the cruse of oil which failed 
not, and the barrel of meal that did not waste (1 Kings xvii. 
16), and the miracles of feeding the multitudes (Matthew 
xiv. 17 ; xv. 34) were probably accomplished through 
apports by the powerful spiritual beings attending the 
prophet and the Christ. 

Another form of psychic manifestation mentioned in 
Scripture is the strong vibration and shaking of rooms and 
buildings. 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 471 

Isaiah vi. 4 : 

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that 
cried, and the house was filled with smoke. 

Acts iv. 31 : 

And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where 
they were assembled together ; and they were all filled with the 
Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. 

In the Report of the Dialectical Society Mrs Honey wood, 
a witness, together with Lord Lindsay, of the manifestations 
in the presence of Home, says of manifestations she witnessed 
at the house of Dr Gully : 

The room vibrated to such a degree that an engineer who 
was present declared that nothing but the strongest machinery 
would have been sufficient to account for it. 

Signoi G. Damiani, giving evidence in the same Report, 
says : 

I have heard noises on the walls of a private house in Clifton, 
making the whole building shake to its foundations. 

, Sir William Crookes testifies also to this strong vibration 
and shaking of the room during his own investigations. 
On the nth June 1915, Dr Crawford records thunderous 
noises ind vibrations in the presence of the wonderful young 
psychb, Kathleen Golligher, which were heard two stories 
down the house, and even outside in the street (Reality 
of Psychic Phenomena, pages 30-32). 

A Church of England dignitary, reporting his experience 
of similar vibrations and noises to the S.P.R. (Proceedings, 
vol. ii., page 145), says: 

Suddenly there broke on our ears a sound that murdered 
sleep. The sound was so palpable, broke on us with so peremp- 
tory a summons, pealed on our senses with so prolonged a 
crash that neither could its reality be doubted or its impression 
thrown off. It struck me as being like the crash of iron bars, 



472 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

falling on the ground. It was prolonged and seemed to 
traverse the house in a succession of rattling echoes, treading 
hard on one another's heels. 

It was often heard both by themselves and others, and 
always occurred precisely at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning, 
showing that intelligence lay behind the production of the 
sound. 

In the account given by the Wesleys of the wonderful 
manifestations in Epworth Rectory this vibration is men- 
tioned several times. 

The room trembled and the door shook exceedingly, so 
that the clattering of the latches was very loud. 

The doors, latch, hinges and windows jarred, and the house 
shook from top to bottom. 

At the commencement of our psychic experiences at 
Weston this kind of manifestation occurred frequently 
and was one of the first we experienced. The most re- 
markable demonstration occurred on 16th November 1908. 

At 6.15 a.m. I was awakened by a loud noise like thunder 
succeeded by a rattling reverberation. Nothing more being 
heard at the time I fell asleep again, and after a time again 
awoke. I sat up and was about to awaken my wiie when 
there burst upon the stillness a tremendous crash rolling 
and reverberating in the house, and apparently coming from 
the upper or third story. It was not thunder, but was so 
loud, vibrant and startling that I felt convinced that 
something serious had happened. I shook my wife, who 
was asleep, crying : " Did you hear that ? " She started 
up into a sitting posture and together we listened for a few 
moments. Six slow distinct knocks, as though done with 
a hammer, sounded apparently on the floor of the upper 
landing. * 

*We have often had psychic messages conveyed by percussrve 
sounds (153, 294, 453). This method of communication is analogou; 
to the rapping out by sounder and needle of those telegraphic 
messages by which a large part of the world's business is transacted. 



LEVITATIONS, FIRE PROOFINGS, APPORTS 473 

Suddenly the loud thunderous crash sounded again, 
but this time seemed to come from the rooms underneath 
us. It was a tremendous reverberating crash, followed by 
an extraordinary series of rattlings and hangings, forming 
a continuous reverberation which shook the room and made 
everything vibrate. I rushed downstairs and my wife 
upstairs to the nursery. The children were fast asleep (we 
had no servant) ; all the doors were locked and nothing 
had fallen or been displaced. We heard the same sound 
on several other occasions at irregular intervals. It was 
always distinctly inside the house. 

These strong vibrations, often shaking the whole house, 
were for a long time a marked feature of the manifestations 
experienced by the Everitts, some account of which will 
be found in Light for 25th September 1915. 

The phenomenon of smoke accompanying these appari- 
tions and psychic manifestations has also been observed 
by us. On Saturday, 14th November 1908, the apparition 
of the man, so often seen, being followed along the passage, 
disappeared at the kitchen fire-grate. The disappearance 
was accompanied by a big flash of light and a cloud of 
smoke, which filled the kitchen and passage. There was 
no fire in the grate, and the chimney shaft is a single one 
and stands alone. I saw the smoke, which had no smell of 
wood, paper, oil, etc. Again, on 19th March 1909, the same 
apparitional figure, after touching and speaking to my 
wife, dissolved into a pillar of black vapour and so dis- 
appeared. 

It will be evident from a careful perusal of the various 
accounts given in this chapter that exactly the same 
psychic forces and influences are in operation in these 
modern times as 'were in operation in the days of the 
prophets and in the days of the Christ. Similar phenomena 
argue similar causes. 



XXIII 

A FURTHER COMPARISON OF MODERN PSYCHIC PHENOMENA 
WITH THOSE RECORDED IN HOLY SCRIPTURE 

Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our 
learning. — -Rom. xv. 4. 

And it shall come to pass that I will pour out my spirit upon all 
flesh ; and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men 
shall see visions, your old men dream dreams. — -Joel ii. 28. 

And these signs shall follow them that believe.- — -Matthew xxviii. 
20; Mark xvi. 17. 

Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. — 
Matthew xxviii. 20. 

It is useless for the Christian to declare that such things were 
confined to the limits of a given period, he must accept what hap- 
pens to-day as well as what happened centuries ago. — -Rev. G. H. 
Hepworth. 

ONE of the first things that impresses a student of 
psychical matters is that the Bible, revered by all 
Christian people as the record of divine revelations 
to man, is full from front to back of accounts of happenings 
which bear a striking resemblance to the psychical pheno- 
mena of modern times. 

The attitude of very many at the present day towards 
this fact is curious. They give an unquestioning assent to 
the Bible accounts concerning angels and visions, miracles 
and prophecies, but if it be suggested that such things 
happen in our own times they at once scent superstition and 
most illogically assert that " such things do not happen 
now," and that "the age of miracles is past." To make 
this assertion is simply to strengthen the hands of the 
materialist, and to give away the whole religious position. 

The truth of the matter is that at the Reformation in 
the effort to throw off from religion many things which 
were plainly of man's device, in the rebound, the pendulum 
swung too far on the other side, with the result that the 
opposite error is now only too prevalent, to the endanger- 

474 



MODERN AND BIBLICAL PHENOMENA 475 

ing of religious and spiritual things. For generations it 
has been fashionable to sneer at human experiences termed 
psychical. The result is seen in the gross materialism and 
the indifference to religion, which is alike deplored by the 
leaders of all branches of the Christian Church. This 
materialistic tendency is noticeable not only amongst the 
laity, but also in those who should be the defenders of the 
spiritual. How rarely do we find the teachers in things 
" spiritual " with the courage to avow a belief in what is 
incorrectly termed " the supernatural." * To do so is to 
risk the loss of one's reputation as a practical man of affairs, 
or to court a superior smile or a look of contempt. Small 

* Notable exceptions among the Bishops and Clergy of the Church 
of England have been the Bishop of Ripon and the late Bishop of 
Carlisle, both vice-presidents of the Society for Psychical Research. 
Archdeacon Colley, whose advocacy never slackened through good 
report and ill; the Rev. H. R. Haweis, the cultured and gifted 
author who preached on many occasions with special refer- 
ence to these things ; the Rev. Arthur Chambers, whose charming 
works on the subject have had so wide a circulation ; the Rev. A. 
Starkey, author of The Life of the World to Come ; the Rev. F. G. 
Lee,' formerly Vicar of All Saints', Lambeth, D.D., D.C.L., author of 
Glimpses oj the Supernatural ; the Rev. J. A. Mason, Vicar of Ratley ; 
the Rev. Alexander Forbes Phillips, Vicar of Gorleston and author 
of Is Death the End ; the Rev. A. M. Mitchell, Vicar of Burton 
Wood; the Rev. F. Fielding Ould, M.A., Vicar of Christ Church, 
Albany Street, N.W ; the Rev. Dr Cobb, Rector of St Ethelburgha's, 
Bishopsgate, E.C ; the Rev. G. Vale Owen, Vicar of Orford ; the 
Rev. Percy Dearmer, D.D., Vicar of St Mary's, Primrose Hill, N.W., 
the Rev. Ellis Roberts, M.A., Vicar of Alberbury ; and the number is 
rapidly increasing. We must not overlook the pioneer in these re- 
searches among the Clergy, the famous Dr John Dee, Fellow of 
Trinity College, Cambridge, Rector of Upton-on- Severn, Chancellor 
of St Paul's, and Warden of Manchester College, in the reign of 
Elizabeth. The record of his experiments is contained in a folio 
volume edited by Meric Casaubon, Rector of Bleadon, and is very 
interesting reading. It is evident that he witnessed many psychical 
phenomena, and the famous " show stone " or " Crystal " which he 
used (cf. the gems in the Urim and Thummim of Lev. viii. 8 and 
1 Sam. xxviii. 6), and in which were seen " Angelical Creatures and 
Spiritual Beings," is now in the British Museum. 

Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that information was given 
to the High Priest by the flashing of the jewels in the Urim and 



476 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

wonder when the verities upon which all evidence of a 
future state depends are treated as if they did not exist, 
that religion loses its hold upon the masses, or that men, 
turning away from a " spiritual " teaching that will have 
naught to do with things spiritual in its own times, cry 
with the poet : 

I falter where I firmly trod, 
And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar stairs 
That slope through darkness up to God ; 
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 
And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all, 
And faintly trust the larger hope. 

When the men of to-day realise that He whom they 
ofttimes ignorantly worship is really Lord of All, they will 
cease to talk of the " Supernatural," and thus remove 
one stumbling block out of the path, and be delivered 
from a blind terror on the one hand, or an equally blind 
ignorance on the other. For if He be Lord of All, the 

Thummim, and on the shoulder-plates worn by him, and that these 
flashes could be seen for a considerable distance (Book III., chap, 
viii.). Mr Wilson seems to have recently obtained similar pheno- 
mena with a large amethyst. Lord Lindsay describes how, at Mr 
Jencken's house, he saw : " A crystal ball, placed on Home's head, 
emit flashes of coloured light following the order of the spectrum ; 
the crystal was spherical and so could not give prismatic colours. 
After this it changed, and we all saw a view of the sea as if we 
were looking down from the top of a high cliff. The sun was setting 
like a globe of fire, lighting up a broad path over the little waves. 
The moon was faintly visible in the south. We also saw a few 
stars." 

The whole appearance lasted about ten minutes. This view 
was objective in that it was visible to all present. 

Mr Hill, who has recently had similar experiences with another 
psychic, writes me that the view in the crystal could be seen by all 
present. 

Some years ago Mr Boursnell showed me photographs of a crystal 
in which beautiful faces were distinctly shown. 



MODERN AND BIBLICAL PHENOMENA 477 

Living God, the Infinite Mind, Will and Energy behind 
all phenomena, then all phenomena, whether material or 
spiritual, have their origin in Him, and form part of the 
natural order of His universe ; therefore, all are natural — 
and nothing save the Living God Himself is supernatural. 
The fact cannot be too strongly emphasised that psychical 
phenomena, ancient and modern, are not supernatural. 
Supernormal they undoubtedly are, in that they do not 
constitute the normal experience of the individual man in 
his mortal earthly life, but they are nevertheless part of 
the phenomena of the universe, and so, natural. 

Now a careful study of Holy Writ reveals the fact that 
the book is an almost continuous record of these super- 
normal experiences,* and that from the earliest times they 
have been the means of communication between the divine 
and the human, between the spiritual and heavenly on 
the one hand, and the mortal and earthly on the other, 
between a higher plane of existence and a lower, between 
God — through the ministry of spiritual beings — and man. 
These supernormal phenomena then break no law, but are 
themselves subject to law, while a careful study of the 

* Varied supernormal gifts and powers are clearly referred to by 
-the Apostle Paul, as being possessed both by himself and by others 
in the Christian Church. 

" Now concerning spiritual gifts I would not have you ignorant. 

" There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit. 

" For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ... to 
another faith ... to another the gift of healing ... to another 
the working of miracles ... to another prophecy, to another dis- 
cerning of spirits [clairvoyance], to another divers kinds of tongues, 
[inspirational speaking in foreign languages]. — Acts ii. 3. 

' ' But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, divid- 
ing to every man severally as he will." — 1 Cor. xii. 1-11. 

" And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily 
prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing 
. . . diversities of tongues " [i.e. those possessed of the power of 
working miracles, healing, and inspirational speaking in foreign 
languages]. — i Cor. xii. 28, 

" I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all." — ■ 
1 Cor. xiv. 18. (See page 187.) 



478 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

sacred pages will convince the impartial student that those 
of ancient and modern times are identical. This considera- 
tion prepares us for the fact that they are confined to no 
one particular period in the world's history, although they 
may differ in intensity and importance in crises of that 
history, yet in every age they partake of the same spiritual 
nature. 

We will now proceed to parallel the accounts of pheno- 
mena described by the various deponents cited in the 
previous chapters, with accounts of phenomena of an 
evidently similar nature taken from the pages of Holy 
Writ. It will be convenient to divide them into classes 
and to set them forth in the order previously noted. 

Apparitions of the Dead 

And he said unto her, What form is he of ? And she said, 
An old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle. And 
Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his 
face to the ground and bowed himself.— i Samuel xxviii. 14. 

And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias 
talking with him. — Matt. xvii. 3. 

I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive 
for evermore. — Rev. i. 18. 

Levitations and Transportations of the Body * 

Moreover the spirit lifted me up and brought me unto the 
gate of the Lord's house, which looketh eastward. — Ezekiel 
viii. 3. 

And the spirit lifted me up between the earth and heaven 
and brought me to Jerusalem. — Ezekiel viii. 3. 

There appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and 
parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirl- 
wind into heaven. — 2 Kings ii. n. 

And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked 
on the water to go to Jesus.- — Matt. xiv. 29. 

And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit 

* The levitation of an inanimate object is recorded in 2 Kings 
vi. 6 : " And the iron did swim." 



MODERN AND BIBLICAL PHENOMENA 479 

of the Lord caught away Philip that the eunuch saw him no 
more. — Acts viii. 39. 

The Spirit Voice 

And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, 
Abraham ! Abraham ! Lay not thy hand upon the lad. — 
Gen. xxii. 11-12. 

God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, Moses ! 
Moses ! — Exodus hi. 4. 

Arise and eat for the journey is too great for thee. — 1 Kings 
xix. 7. 

What doest thou here, Elijah ? — 1 Kings xix. 13. 

There fell a voice from heaven, saying, O Nebuchadnezzar, 
to thee it is spoken, the kingdom is departed from thee. — 
Daniel iv. 31. 

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will 
toward men. — Luke ii. 14. 

This is my beloved Son : hear him. — Luke ix. 35. 

Then came there a voice from heaven saying, I have both 
glorified it and will glorify it again. — John xii. 28. 

And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless 
hearing a voice but seeing no man.- — Acts ix. 7. 

Rise, Peter, kill and eat. 

What God hath cleansed call thou not common. — Acts x. 

13, 15- 

Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? 

I am Jesus whom thou persecutest ; it is hard for thee to 
kick against the pricks.^- Acts ix. 4-5. 

Vide also Judges vi. 20; xiii. 3; 1 Samuel iii. 10 ; Luke i. 
28 ; Rev. i. 10, etc. 

Trance 

He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw 
the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having 
his eyes open. — Numbers xxiv. 4. 

The Spirit entered into me when he spake unto me and 
set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me. — 
Ezekiel ii. 2. 

Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on 
my face towards the ground.— Daniel viii. 18. 

Yet heard I the voice of his words, then was I in a deep 
sleep on my face. — Dan. x. 9. 



480 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

And he became very hungry, but while they made ready he 
fell into a trance. — Acts x. 10. 

And it came to pass that when I was come to Jerusalem, 
even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance. — Acts 
xxii. 17. 

The Proofing 0/ the Body against Fire, etc. 

Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, 
and they have no hurt. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- 
nego came forth from the midst of the fire. And the princes, 
governors, and captains and king's counsellors being gathered 
together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no 
power. — Daniel iii. 25-27. 

Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal 
in his hand which he had taken from the tongs from off the 
altar. And he laid it upon my mouth. — Isaiah vii. 6-7. 

These signs shall follow them that believe . . . they shall 
take up serpents (vide Acts xxviii. 5), and if they drink any 
deadly thing it shall not hurt them. — Mark xvi. 18. 

The Proofing of Various Inflammable Substances 
against Fire 

Nor was a hair of their head singed, neither were their coats 
changed, not the smell of fire had passed on them. — Daniel 
iii. 27. 

Indicating the Whereabouts of Objects Unknown, or Lost, 
to the Seekers 

And as for thine asses that were lost three days ago, set 
not thine heart upon them ; for they, are found. — 1 Samuel 
ix. 20. 

Go thou to the sea and cast in a hook, and take up the fish 
that cometh up first, and when thou hast opened its mouth 
thou shalt find a piece of money. — Matthew xvii. 27. 

Cast the net on the right side of the ship and ye shall find, 
and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of 
fishes. — John xxi. 6. 

Sounds of Varied Import 

I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures, 
and the noise of the wheels over against them, and a noise of 
a great rushing. — Ezekiel iii. 13. 



MODERN AND BIBLICAL PHENOMENA 481 

The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that 
it thundered ; others said, An angel spake to him. — John xii. 
29. 

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a 
rushing mighty wind. — Acts ii. 2. 

And there were voices and thunderings, and an earthquake, 
and great hail. — Rev. xi. 19. 

Luminous Appearances 

And it came to pass that when the sun went down, and 
it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that 
passed between those pieces. — Gen. xv. 17. 

And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of 
fire out of the midst of a bush. — Exodus ii. 2. 

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, 
and by night a pillar of fire. — Ex. xiii. 21. 

Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the 
glory of the Lord filled the tabernacles. — Ex. xl. 34. 

And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, 
behold the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come 
nigh him. — Ex. xxxiv. 30. 

And when Solomon had made an end of praying the fire 
came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering 
and the sacrifice, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. 
— 2 Chron. vii. 1. 

And his face did shine as the sun and his raiment was white 
as the light. — Matt. xvii. 2. 

And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of 
fire, and it sat upon each of them. — Acts ii. 3. 

A light shined in the prison. — Acts xii. 7. 

At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, 
above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and 
them that journeyed with me. — Acts xxvi. 13. 

His head and his hairs were like wool, as white as snow, his 
eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet like fine brass as if they 
burned in a furnace, and his countenance as the sun shineth 
in his strength. — Rev. i. 14-16. 

Appearances of Hands 

And when I looked, behold a hand was sent unto me, and 
lo, a roll of a book was therein. — Ezekiel viii. 3. 

2 H 



482 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock 
of my head. — Ezekiel viii. 3. 

And the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand . . . 
and the king saw the part of the hand. — Daniel v. 5. 

Touch of Spiritual or Discarnate Beings 

And as he lay and slept ... an angel touched him, and 
said unto him, Arise and eat. — 1 Kings xix. 5. 

And behold a hand touched me which set me upon my 
knees and upon the palm of mine hands. — Daniel x. 10 ; also 
viii. 18. 

While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I 
had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly 
swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. 
— Daniel ix. 2. 

The angel of the Lord came upon him and he smote Peter 
on the side. — Acts xii. 7. 

And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not, 
I am he that liveth and was dead. — Rev. i. 17-18. 

Direct Writing 

In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and 
wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the 
wall : and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. — Dan. 

v. 5- 

Tables of stone written with the finger of God. — Exodus 
xxxi. 18. 

And the writing was the writing of God given upon the 
tables. — Exodus xxxii. 16. 

Automatic Writing * 

All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing 
by his hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern. — 
1 Chronicles xxviii. 19. 



* Many cases of evidential automatic writing are on record (q.v.). 
In these, as previously noted on page 365, the contents of the 
messages have to be looked to for evidence of the operations of an in- 
dependent and external spirit personality. Often the information 
conveyed is totally unknown to the psychic through whom the 
writing comes. One of the most remarkable instances of this 



MODERN AND BIBLICAL PHENOMENA 483 

And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet 
saying, Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father. [This 
was several years after Elijah's death (2 Kings ii.).] 

The Rising of Spiritual Beings up through the Ground 

or Floor 

And the king said unto her . . . what sawest thou ? And 
the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the 
earth. 

And he said unto her, What form is he of ? And she said, 
An old man cometh up. — 1 Samuel xxviii. 13-14. 

The Manifestations of Spiritual Beings in a Flame or 
Luminous Cloud 

And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of 
fire. — Exodus iii. 2. 

And the Lord went before them by night in a pillar of fire. 
— Exodus xiii. 21. 

The angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. — Judges xiii. 
20. 

Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory. — Luke ix. 31. 

Spiritual Beings Superior to the Laws of Gravitation 

The angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. — Judges xiii. 
20. 

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, 

occurred recently, when the Edgar Chapel of Glastonbury Abbey— 
which had been buried and lost for generations, and had been vainly 
sought at great expense by excavators — was rediscovered by Mr 
Bligh Bond as the result of a communication made through auto- 
matic writing (see The Gate of Remembrance, Blackwell. Oxford). 

Another most striking case was laid before the S.P.R. in 1916 
by the Right Hon. Gerald Balfour, in a paper entitled " The Ear 
of Dionysius." It refers to automatic script obtained through Mrs 
Willett, a lady well known to Mr Balfour. This script gives remark- 
able evidence of the survival of Professor Butcher and Professor 
A. W. Verrall, and shows a range of classical knowledge so profound 
(222, 225) as to utterly baffle the investigators, until the key was given 
through the script by the communicating intelligence. This case 
adds one more to the list of those which are utterly destructive of 
the telepathic and subliminal theories. 



484 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight. 
— Acts i. 9. 

Materialisations 
(Spiritual forms audible or tangible, or visibly affecting 
material things.) 

The same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote 
upon the plaister of the wall. — Dan. v. 5. 

And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with 
him until the breaking of the day. — Gen. xxxii. 24. 

And behold there stood a man over against him with his 
sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went unto him and 
said, Art thou for us, or for our enemies ? And he said, Nay ! 
but as Captain of the Lord's host am I now come. — Joshua 
v. 13. 

Behold I see four men loose . . . and the form of the 
fourth is like the Son of God. — Daniel hi. 25. 

And it came to pass that as he sat at meat with them he 
took bread and blessed it and brake, and gave it to them. 

And their eyes were opened and they knew him, and he 
vanished out of their sight. — Luke xxiv. 30-31. 

And after eight days again his disciples were within and 
Thomas with them. Then Jesus came, the doors being shut, 
and stood in the midst and said, Peace be unto you. 

Then said he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger and behold 
my hands, and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my 
side, and be not faithless but believing. — John xx. 26-27. 

And as they ran to tell his disciples, behold Jesus met them, 
saying, All hail ! And they came and held him by the feet and 
worshipped him. — Matthew xxviii. 9. 

And while they yet believed not for joy and wondered, he 
said unto them, Have ye here any meat ? 

And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an 
honeycomb. 

And he took it, and did eat before them. — Luke xxiv. 41-43. 

And behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a 
light shined in the prison : and he smote Peter on the side, 
and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains 
fell off from his hands. — Acts xii. 7. 

Vide also Mark xvi. 5-6 ; Rev. xiii. 17 ; Acts x. 3 ; 



MODERN AND BIBLICAL PHENOMENA 485 

Judges vi. 21 ; Gen. xviii. 2 ; Daniel x. 6-10 ; Daniel ix. 21 ; 
Rev. i. 17-18. 

Sounds of Music and of Musical Instruments 

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me 
a great voice as of a trumpet. — Rev. i. 10. 

The first voice I heard was as of a trumpet talking to me. 
— Rev. iv. 1. 

And I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps. 
And they sung as it were a new song before the throne.— Rev. 
xiv. 2. 

And I saw . . . them that had gotten the victory . . . 
stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. 

And they sang the song of Moses and the Lamb. — Rev. 
xv. 2-3. 

Strong Vibrations and Shakings of Rooms and 
Buildings 

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that 
cried, and the house was filled with smoke. — Isaiah vi. 4. 

And when they had prayed the place was shaken where 
they were assembled together. — Acts iv. 31. 

Wind accompanying Spiritual Manifestations 
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing 

mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were 

sitting. — Acts ii. 2. 

And I looked, and behold a whirlwind came out of the 

north, and out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four 

living creatures. — Ezekiel i. 4-5. 

Apports 

And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the 
coals, and a cruse of water at his head. — 1 Kings xix. 6. 

And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse 
of oil fail. — 1 Kings xvii. 16. (Cf. Matt. xiv. 19-21.) 

Prophecy, or the Foretelling of Events 
The Bible contains accounts of many prophecies and their 
fulfilment. The following historical instances are especi- 
ally remarkable. 



486 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Prophecy. 

And Zedekiah King of Judah shall not escape out of the 
hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the 
hand of the King of Babylon. And he shall lead Zedekiah 
to Babylon. — Jeremiah xxxii. 4-5. 

And I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans, 
yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there. — Ezekiel 
xii. 13. 

Fulfilment. 

And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king and 
overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his army were 
scattered from him. 

So they took the king and brought him up to the King of 
Babylon to Riblah, and they gave judgment upon him. 

And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and 
put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with fetters of 
brass and carried him to Babylon. — 2 Kings xxv. 5-7. 

Thus was Zedekiah led blind to Babylon, which city he 
never saw, although he died there. 

Prophecy. 

Behold I will send and take all the families of the north, 
saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon 
my servant, and will bring them against this land. 

And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonish- 
ment, and these nations shall serve the King of Babylon 
seventy years ! — Jeremiah xxv. 9-10. 

Fulfilment. 

(First Captivity under Jehoiakim) 

And Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon came up against the 
city . . . and did besiege it. 

And he carried away all Jerusalem and all the princes and 
all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, 
and all the craftsmen and smiths, none remained save the 
poorest sort of the people of the land . . . even them the 
King of Babylon brought captive to Babylon. — 2 Kings xxiv. 
ii, 14, 16. 



MODERN AND BIBLICAL PHENOMENA 487 

(Second Captivity under Zedekiah) 

Therefore he brought upon them the King of the Chaldees. 
. . . And they burnt the house of God and brake down the 
wall of Jerusalem and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire 
and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. 

And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away 
captive to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his 
sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia. — 2 Chronicles 
xxxvi. 17-20. 

From the First Captivity to the Edict of Cyrus, which 
gave the Jews their freedom, is a period of exactly 70 
years, 606-536 B.C. 
Prophecy. 

For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies 
shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and 
keep thee in on every side. And shall lay thee even with the 
ground, and thy children within thee, and they shall not 
leave one stone upon another.— Luke xix. 44. 

Fulfilment. 

Capture and utter destruction of Jerusalem by the army 
of Vespasian and Titus, September, a.d. 70. 

Utterance in Languages Unknown to the Speaker 
{Spirit Control, Inspirational Speaking) 

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began 
to speak with tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 

The multitude came together and were confounded because 
that every man heard them speak in his own language. — Acts 
ii. 4, 6.* 

* The outpouring of the spiritual gifts and the various psychic 
manifestations described in Acts ii. 2-6 was in all probability pre- 
ceded by " the breaking of bread and the prayers " (Acts ii. 42) — 
i.e. by a celebration of the Holy Communion — termed the Agapae or 
Love Feast by the Early Church, a service above all things con- 
ducive to harmony and sympathy between all those who were assembled 
together, and so calculated to be peculiarly helpful in bringing about 
those harmonious conditions needed for psychic manifestations. I 
have not hitherto seen this aspect of the Lord's Supper commented 
upon, but it is one which was evidently understood and practised 
by the Early Church. 



488 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. 
— Acts x. 46. 

The Holy Ghost came upon them and they spake with 
tongues and prophesied. — Acts xix. 6. 

If any man speak in an unknown tongue let it be by two or 
at the most by three, and that by course, and let one inter- 
pret. — 1 Cor. xiv. 27.* 

I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all. 
— 1 Cor. xiv. 18 

Healing by Abnormal Powers 

And Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole, 
and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, 
when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. — Num. xxi. 9. 

* This inspirational speaking, due to control, is generally associated 
with trance (vide page 222), the controlling spirit using the organs of 
speech of the person controlled, whose voice is often completely 
changed in tone and character. (Of. 1 Sam. x. 6.) It might thus be 
termed a fourth form of spirit voice (vide page 306). It is by no 
means, however, confined to speaking in foreign languages. 

Although this form of manifestation is frequently met with, there 
are many psychics who are not entranced, but while clairvoyant and 
clairaudient remain normal throughout. I have listened to fine 
addresses given during trance, and have by this means received very 
evidential communications. This form of manifestation seems to 
have been especially in evidence on the Day of Pentecost and in 
the early Church. I have experienced it in my own family on three 
or four occasions. On one of these, occurring on 21st November 
1914, my wife was suddenly entranced and completely lost con- 
sciousness as though in a faint. She then began to talk to me, not 
in her own voice but in that of my Aunt Elizabeth Coates, who died 
in 1908, the exact tone of the voice, with all its most pathetic inflec- 
tions and imperfections due to the stroke which ultimately killed 
her, being reproduced with a fidelity that brought instant con- 
viction as to her controlling presence. For a quarter of an hour I 
talked face to face, not with my wife but with my poor paralysed 
aunt, who had died six years previously. She informed me that 
although she spoke and acted as when suffering, this was for evidence 
of identity and she was " all right now and happy." It was one 
of the most evidential experiences I ever had. My wife came out 
of this trance exactly like a person recovering from a fainting fit, 
and knew nothing of what had occurred, neither had she ever seen 
my aunt at that stage of her affliction which was so wonderfully and 
evidentially reproduced. My son was present during this wonderful 
scene. 



MODERN AND BIBLICAL PHENOMENA 489 

Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall 
come again to thee and thou shalt be clean. . . . And his 
flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child. — 2 Kings 
x. 14. 

And he went up, and lay upon the child and put his mouth 
upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands 
upon his hands, and he stretched himself upon the child ; 
and the flesh of the child waxed warm. — 2 Kings iv. 34. 

And he touched her hand, and the fever left her. — Matt, 
viii. 15. 

And he touched their eyes . . . and their eyes were opened. 
— Matt. ix. 29. 

. . . and cut off his right ear . . . and he touched his ear 
and healed him. — Luke xxii. 51. 

And Ananias . . . entered into the house, and putting his 
hand on him said . . . the Lord, even Jesus, who appeared 
unto thee in the way as thou earnest, hath sent me that thou 
mightest receive thy sight. . . . And immediately there fell 
from his eyes as it had been scales. — Acts ix. 17-18. 

Clairvoyance and Clairaudience 

And I Daniel alone saw the vision for the men that were 
with me saw not the vision, but a great quaking fell upon 
them. — Daniel x. 7. 

Jesus said unto him, Before that Philip called thee I saw thee 
under the fig tree. — John i. 48. 

Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of man 
standing on the right hand of God. — Acts viii. 56. 

For clairaudience see 1 Samuel xvi. 7, 12. 

There are other phases of spiritual manifestation, familiar 
to Bible students, mentioned in Holy Writ, but we have 
confined ourselves to paralleling those things set forth in 
the preceding chapters which are attested and witnessed to 
by well-known scientists and men of standing. From the 
above parallel cases it will be seen that there is an extra- 
ordinary identity between the phenomena of ancient and 
modern times, an identity so close and striking as to lead to 
the inevitable and irresistible conclusion that they are both 
the varied manifestations of the same spiritual powers. 



XXIV 

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 

How ill this taper burns ! Ha ! who comes here ? 
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes 
That shapes this monstrous apparition. 
It comes upon me. Art thou anything ? 
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil 
That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare ? 

Julius Ccesar, Act iv., scene 3. 

HAS the " psychical " experience of mankind in the 
past been similar to that of modern times ? I 
unhesitatingly answer, Yes. There has never been 
any break in its continuity. The further we go back the 
more we approach an age when these manifestations are 
not so carefully attested, save, of course, the one supreme 
instance, the resurrection and appearance of Christ, the 
subject of so many writings and such a carefully recorded 
account. Still there is ample evidence in the pages of 
history to convince one of the truth of the above statement. 
There are such a vast number of cases on record that it is 
impossible to do more than touch upon a few, but these 
are sufficient to show the unanimity of the testimony in 
every age. 

Brutus, the former friend of Caesar, is said to have seen 
the apparition of Caesar in his tent who warned him of 
his approaching death at Philippi. 

St Augustine relates, in Sermon 233, how his own spiritual 
body was twice seen at a considerable distance.* 

* St Augustine (a.d. 354-430) ranks as the chief of the post- 
Nicene fathers. It may not be uninteresting to turn to ante-Nicene 
testimony. 

In The Acts of the Martyrdom of Ignatius, chap, vii., page 297, 
Ignatius is represented as appearing in a vision after his martyrdom 
in the arena (a.d. 115-117). 

In the book entitled The Consummation of Thomas the Apostle, 
Thomas is recorded as having appeared to those weeping at his 

490 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 491 

Margaret de Valois. D'Aubigne states, in his Histoire 
Universelle, that Henry IV. told him how Margaret de 
Valois, his queen, saw, in the presence of three other 
ladies, the Archbishop of Lyons, and himself, the appari- 
tion of a cardinal who was found to have died at that 
moment. 

Catherine de Medici. Margaret de Valois relates in her 
memoirs that Catherine de Medici saw a vision of the 
battle of Jarnac, and was heard to exclaim : " Do you not 
see the Prince of Conde lying dead in the hedge ? " Conde 
was slain in one of the charges. 

Henry IV. of France was warned of his approaching end 
by an apparition in the wood at Fontainebleau. Shortly 
afterwards he was assassinated by Ravaillac. This is 
related in Sully's Memoirs. 

Charles I., on the eve of the battle of Naseby, is said 
to have twice seen the apparition of Stratford warning 
him against the battle. Prince Rupert, to whom he told 
the vision, persuaded him to disregard it, with results 
disastrous to all concerned. 

The Duke of Buckingham. This account is very well 
attested and one of the most circumstantial on record. 
The Duke's father thrice appeared to Mr Towers, the works 
surveyor, who at last, terrified, conveyed the message given 
by the apparition to the young Duke, warning him that he 
must mend his ways, otherwise " he would not be suffered 
to live long." For a full account of this vide Lord Claren- 
don's History of the Rebellion and Civil War in England. 

Lord Balcarres, whilst a prisoner in Edinburgh Castle, 
saw the apparition of the heroic Dundee, who was killed 
in the first charge at the battle of Killiecrankie. He was 
seen in jack boots and buff coat, all pale and bloody, and 

tomb, and indicates the immediate resurrection and reward, saying : 
" I have gone up and received the things I hoped for." 

There is abundant evidence to prove that both these works date 
from ante-Nicene times, and they distinctly show the prevalence 
of a belief in the immediate resurrection among early Christians. 



492 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

informed Lord B that he had been shot in the Pass 

of Killiecrankie, after which the appearance melted away. 

Ben Jonson, according to the story told by him to 
Drummond of Hawthornden, saw an apparition of his 
eldest son, with a red cross upon his forehead, in the house 
of Sir Robert Cotton. It was afterwards found that his 
son had expired of the plague at that same time. 

Napoleon, when in St Helena, saw an apparition of 
Josephine and spoke to it. He was warned of his approach- 
ing death. Napoleon told this experience to Count 
Montholon. 

President Lincoln had a remarkable premonitory dream, 
which visited him on three occasions, twice before the 
two most disastrous defeats of the Northern forces, and 
the third time the night before his assassination. The 
President knew this dream presaged trouble and disaster. 

There are hundreds of other instances on record which 
we pass over to mention a few at greater length which are 
particularly well attested. 

The Daughter of Sir Charles Lee. This case, one of the 
best attested in history, was committed to writing by the 
Bishop of Gloucester from the lips of the young lady's 
father, Sir Charles Lee. It is as follows : — 

Sir Charles Lee, by his first lady, had only one daughter, 
of which she died in childbed, and when she was dead her 
sister, the Lady Everard, desired to have the education of the 
child, and she was by her very well educated until she was 
marriageable, and a match was concluded for her with Sir 
William Perkins, but was then prevented in an extraordinary 
manner. Upon a Thursday night she, thinking that she saw 
a light in her chamber (vide Chap. XVII.) after she was in bed, 
knocked for her maid, who presently came to her, and she asked 
why she left a candle burning in her chamber. The maid said 
she had left none, and there was none save what she had 
brought with her at that time. Then she said it was the fire, 
but the maid told her that it was quite out, and said she 
believed it was only a dream, whereupon she said it might be 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 493 

so and composed herself again to sleep. But about two of 
the clock she was awakened again, and saw the apparition of 
a woman standing between her curtain and her pillow who 
told her she was her mother and that she was happy, that by 
twelve o'clock that day she should be with her. Whereupon 
she knocked again for her maid and called for her clothes, and 
when she was dressed went into her closet and came not out 
again until nine, when she brought a letter sealed to her father, 
brought it to her aunt, the Lady Everard, told her what had 
happened, and desired that as soon as she was dead it might 
be sent to him. The lady thought she was suddenly fallen 
mad, and thereupon sent away at once to Chelmsford for a 
physician and a surgeon, who both came immediately, but the 
physician could discern no indication of what she imagined or 
of any indisposition of her body ; notwithstanding, the Lady 
Everard would needs have her let blood, which was done 
accordingly. 

And when the young woman had patiently let them do what 
they would with her she desired that the chaplain might be 
called to read prayers, and when prayers were ended she took 
her guitar and psalm book and sat down on a chair and played 
so admirably that her music master, who was then there, 
admired at it. Near the stroke of twelve she rose, and sat 
herself down in a great chair with arms, and presently fetching 
a strong breathing or two, immediately expired, and was so 
suddenly cold as to be wondered at by the surgeon and physician. 
She died at Waltham in Essex, three miles from Chelmsford, 
and the letter was sent to Sir Charles at his house in Warwick- 
shire, but he was so afflicted with the death of his daughter 
that he came not until she was buried. 

One cannot fail to remark the singular likeness of this case 
to that of Mr Christopher Brooks, given by Mr Gurney. 
An interval of some two hundred and fifty years separates 
them, but evidently the experience is identically the same ; 
human nature has not changed one iota in the lapse of 
centuries. 

Dr Donne. The following is a case of an apparition of 
the spiritual body during mortal life (Chapter IX.). It is 
related by Izaak Walton. 



494 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Mr Donne went on a mission to Paris with Sir Robert 
Drury. Two days after arriving in Paris, Donne told Sir 
Robert that he had seen a vision of his wife walking through 
his room with her hair hanging over her shoulders and a dead 
child in her arms. So impressed were they by this incident 
that they at once sent a messenger to London to inquire con- 
cerning Mrs Donne's health. On returning the man brought 
the news that at the very hour of the vision she had been 
confined of a dead child. 

Marquis de Rambouillet. This is one of the best known 
historical cases, and is related at length in Causes Cdlebres, 
vol. xi., page 370. 

The Marquis de Rambouillet and the Marquis de Precy 
were about to depart for Flanders, and were conversing on 
the subject of the future world in a manner which seemed to 
indicate that they were not very strongly persuaded of its 
existence. They ended by making a compact that whoever 
should first die should bring the news of it to the other. The 
Marquis de Rambouillet set off for Flanders, where the war 
was then carried on, but the Marquis de Precy remained in 
Paris, detained by a low fever (173). 

Six weeks after, in broad daylight, he heard someone with- 
draw his bed curtain, and turning to see who it was perceived 
the Marquis de Rambouillet in buff coat and jack boots. He 
sprang from his bed to embrace his friend, but Rambouillet 
sprang back and told him that he had come to keep his word 
as promised, and that all that was said of the next world was 
true, that he, Precy, should change his conduct. The Marquis 
de Precy again attempted to embrace his friend, but the figure 
eluded him but still continued visible. All this time he stood 
at some little distance, his figure appearing somewhat shadowy 
and unsubstantial, but the voice very audible. Seeing that de 
Precy was incredulous Rambouillet showed him the wound in 
his side. He also informed Precy that in the next action in 
which he was engaged he would be slain. Precy soon after- 
wards received the news of Rambouillet 's death. Some little 
time after this the Marquis de Precy was killed in the first 
action he engaged in following the vision, the battle of the 
Faubourg St Antoine. 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 495 

A very similar story is related by Lord Chedworth, who 
saw the apparition of a friend who, like himself, was sceptical 

in religious matters. The figure informed Lord C that 

he had died, and that there was a future life. Immediately 
afterwards news came of his friend's death. 

Lady Beresford and Lord Tyrone. The compact between 
Lord Tyrone and Lady Beresford is one of the best- known 
historical instances on record. Lady Beresford, before 
her marriage to Sir T. Beresford, made a solemn compact 
with Lord Tyrone that whosoever died first should appear 
to the other. She was married in 1687, and he died in 
1693, appearing to her on 15th October. He then warned 
her that she would die upon her forty-eighth birthday. 
This was carefully kept secret, and as the day approached 
she was most anxious, as was very natural. However, 
nothing occurred, and as the day named had passed Lady 
Beresford married again. Two years after, while celebrat- 
ing her birthday, she accidentally found that she was not 
fifty, but really forty-eight on that very day, and she died 
before night. There is a very interesting similarity between 
this case and that of Miss Barrett, Mrs Browning's sister, 
described on page 254. 

Lord Littleton. This account is contained in The Gentle- 
man's Magazine, vol. xxxv., page 597. Lord Littleton 
had a remarkable vision on 14th November 1799, in which 
he was warned of his approaching death and bidden to 
repent. Three days later, on 27th November, he died. 
(There is, or was, a picture in the family illustrating this 
warning vision.) 

On the day of his death he himself appeared to his friend, 
Mr Peter Andrews, at Dartford. 

This account of Lord Littleton's appearance was certified 
by Dr Johnson, who received it from the lips of Lord 
Westcote, the uncle of Lord Littleton. It runs as follows : 

The intimate friend of Lord Littleton, Mr Miles Peter 
Andrews, was at his house in Dartford when Lord Littleton 



496 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

died at his home, Pitt Place, Epsom, thirty miles away. Mr 
Andrews' house was full of company, and he expected Lord 
Littleton, whom he had left in his usual state of health, to 
join him the next day, which was a Sunday. Mr Andrews, 
feeling indisposed on the Saturday evening, retired early to 
bed and requested one of his guests, Mr Pigou, to preside at 
the supper-table. He fell into a restless sort of sleep, but was 
awakened between eleven and twelve by someone opening his 
curtains, which proved to be Lord Littleton, who said that he 
was come to tell him that "all was over." It appears that 
Lord Littleton was fond of practical joking, and Mr Andrews 
was certain at the moment that this was one of his tricks, so 
picking up his slippers he hurled them at him, whereupon Lord 
Littleton retreated to a dressing-room from whence there was 
no egress, and Mr Andrews ran in after him, intending to 
chastise him as a return for the practical joke. To his amaze- 
ment the room was empty, and his own room door was also 
locked. He at once rang for the servants, asking if they had 
seen Lord Littleton. No one had seen him. Mr Andrews, 
still confident that a trick had been played him, was rather 
angry, and told the servants not to make him up a bed in the 
house, but let him go to the inn. Mr Andrews then retired 
again, not having the slightest suspicion that he had seen 
anything unusual. 

The day afterwards Mrs Pigou went to London and heard 
the news that Lord Littleton had died the previous night. A 
message was at once despatched to Mr Andrews, who was so 
affected that he swooned away, and was always profoundly 
impressed with this experience. 

The Wesleys. The account of the long-continued and 
extraordinary manifestations at Epworth parsonage is in- 
teresting, as being one of the earliest well-attested narratives 
of its kind. 

The psychic manifestations in the rectory of Epworth, 
Lincolnshire, then held by the Rev. Samuel Wesley, M.A., 
are among the most interesting on record. The following 
account is taken from accounts which originally appeared 
in The Armenian Magazine for 1784, and includes extracts 
from the diary of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, Rector of 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 497 

St Andrews, Epworth, under date 27th August 1726, and 
also from the letters and narratives of several members 
of his family, including the Rev. John Wesley, the founder 
of Methodism. 

Concerning noises heard in my house at Epworth, Lincoln- 
shire, in December and January, 1716 

From the first of December my children and servants heard 
many strange knockings in every story of my house, and in 
most of the rooms. 

Something like the steps of a man were heard going up and 
down stairs at all hours of the night, and vast rumblings below 
stairs and in the garret. 

At last we heard several loud knocks in my chamber, nine 
distinct loud knocks which seemed to be in the next room to 
ours, with a sort of pause every third stroke. I thought it 
somebody in the house, and having got a stout mastiff dog 
hoped he would soon rid me of it. 

Next night six knocks but not so loud. 

Next night but one we were awakened by noises so violent 
that it was in vain to think of sleep while they continued. 
I rose, and my wife with me, and we went into every chamber. 
We heard it behind us, we heard also a loud crashing of bottles 
as if all were broke to pieces, and another sound like a peck of 
money thrown down before us. The same, three of my 
daughters heard at another time. 

We went through the hall when the mastiff came whining 
to us, as he did always after the first night of his coming, for 
then he barked violently at it, but was silent afterwards, and 
seemed more afraid than any of the children (128). 

We still heard it rattle and thunder in every room above 
and behind us, locked as well as open. 

Wednesday night, December 26. 

A little after ten my daughter heard its signal, with which 
she was perfectly acquainted. It was like the strong winding 
up of a jack. 

It began knocking in the kitchen underneath, then seemed 
to be at the bed's foot, and at last at the head of it. I knocked 
with my stick on the joists of the kitchen. It answered me 
as often as I knocked. 

2 I 



498 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

I went upstairs and found it knocking hard. I asked it 
what it was and why it disturbed innocent children and did 
not come to me in my study if it had anything to say. Soon 
after it gave one knock at the outside of the house (472). 

I went outside, both alone and with company, and walked 
round the house, but could see nor hear nothing. 

One night when the noise was great in the kitchen, and on 
a deal partition, and on a door in the yard, the latch thereof 
often being lifted up, my daughter Emilia went and held it 
fast on the inside, but still it was lifted up and the door pushed 
violently against her, though nothing was seen on the outside. 

When at prayers the names of the Prince and King George 
were mentioned, it would make a great noise over our heads 
constantly (there were thunderous knocks at the " Amen "). 

I have thrice been pushed by an invisible power, once against 
the corner of my desk in the study, a second time against the 
door of the matted chamber, a third time against the right side 
of my study door as I was going in (267). 

I followed it into almost every room in the house, both by 
night and by day, with lights and without, and have sat alone 
for some time, and when I heard the noise, spoken to it to tell 
me what it was, but never heard any articulate noise, and only 
once or twice feeble sounds a little louder than the chirping 
of a bird. 

Extracts from the letters and published narrative oj Susannah, 
Emilia, and Molly Wesley 

"We heard a great noise as if a piece of sounding metal 
was thrown down outside our chamber. We were lying in 
the quietest part of the house." 

"I do not like the noise of the gown sweeping along the 
ground, nor its knocking like my father." 

" It would answer to my mother if she stamped on the floor 
and bid it." 

" It would knock when I was putting the children to bed 
just under me where I sat." 

" It was more loud and fierce if anyone said it was rats or 
due to natural causes." (This has been often noted. — C.L.T.) 

" Besides, something was seen thrice ; first by my mother, 
second in the dining-room one evening, the last time in the 
kitchen, like a white rabbit." 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 499 

" The sounds very often seemed in the air in the middle of 
the room, nor could they ever make any such themselves by 
any contrivance." 

" It never came by day until mother had ordered the horn 
blown." 

[Mrs Wesley had caused a horn to be blown in all the rooms 
with the idea of scaring away anything intruding.] 

" After that time scarce anyone could go from one room to 
another without the latch being lifted up before they touched 
it." 

" Whether the clock went right or wrong it always came as 
near as could be guessed about a quarter to ten by the 
night." 

" Kezzie said, ' Let it answer me if it can,' and stamping, 
the same were imitated many times successively." 

"The room trembled as it passed along, and the doors 
shook exceedingly, so that the clattering of the latches was 
very loud " (471). 

"The children were asleep, but panting, trembling, and 
sweating exceedingly." 

" The door, latch, hinges, and windows jarred, and the 
house shook from top to bottom." 

"A few days after, between five and six in the evening, 
I was by myself in the dining-room. The door seemed to 
open and someone walked in in a nightgown trailing upon the 
floor (nothing appearing) and seemed to go leisurely round 
me." 

"My father adjured it, but it seemed to take no notice, at 
which he became angry and called it a deaf and dumb devil 
and again adjured it to speak. When he had done it knocked 
on the bed's head so loudly as if it would break it to 
shivers." 

" It came gradually to Hetty's bed who trembled strongly 
in her sleep." 

"The Rev. Mr Hoole (Vicar of Haxey) read prayers once, 
but it knocked as usual at the prayers for the King." 

Extracts from the narrative of the Rev. John Wesley 

We then heard a knocking over our heads, and Mr Wesley 
catching up a candle said : " Come, sir, now you shall hear 
for yourself." He went upstairs. When we came to the 



500 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

nursery it was knocking in the next room, and when we were 
there it was knocking in the nursery. And there it continued 
to knock though we came in, particularly at the head of the 
bed in which Miss Hetty and her sister lay. Mr Wesley, 
observing that they were much affected, sweating and trembling 
exceedingly, was very angry, and pulling out a pistol was going 
to fire at the place from whence the sounds came, but I caught 
his arm. He then went close to the place and said sternly : 
" Thou deaf and dumb devil, why dost thou frighten these 
children that cannot answer for themselves ? Come to me 
in my study that am a man." Instantly it knocked his 
knock (the knock he always used at the gate), as if it would 
shiver the board to pieces, and we heard nothing more that 
night. 

Till this time my father had never heard the least disturb- 
ance in his study. But the next morning as he attempted to 
go in his study (of which none had the key but himself) the 
door was thrust back with such violence as had like to have 
thrown him down. However, he thrust the door open and 
went in. Presently there was a knocking first on one side, 
then on the other, and after a time in the next room. He 
went into that room and adjured it to speak to him, but in 
vain. Upon this he said : " Go all of you downstairs, it may 
be that when I am alone it will have courage to speak. " When 
she had gone a thought came and he said : "If thou art the 
spirit of my son Samuel I pray thee knock three knocks and 
no more." Immediately all was silence. Soon after our 
large mastiff dog came and ran to shelter himself between them 
(Mr and Mrs Wesley) while the disturbances continued. At 
first he used to bark and leap on one side and the other, and 
that frequently before anyone in the room heard any noise at 
all. But after two or three days he used to creep away before 
the noise began. And by this the family knew it was at hand, 
nor did the observation ever fail (128). 

It is manifest from the above account that this most 
gifted family was largely endowed with psychic powers, 
and being all together in the house supplied at once both 
the channels of communication and part of the necessary 
forces enabling the manifestations to be made. This is 
evident from the statement, several times repeated, that 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 501 

the younger members of the family were seen to be " tremb- 
ling and sweating in their sleep exceedingly " while these 
happenings were in progress. 

No student of psychical matters can fail to be impressed, 
on reading this remarkable narrative, with the fact that 
the Wesleys, in a sense, rank among the pioneers of Modern 
Psychical Research. Had the elder Wesley arranged for 
a negative signal, as he did for an affirmative one, or been 
a little more patient in the matter, communication would 
have been established. Whereas on receiving no reply, 
by the three knocks he had requested, to his query : " Art 
thou the spirit of my son Samuel ? " he gave up the quest. 
The narrative also states that he often asked it to speak, 
and heard nothing but low chirping sounds, and once on 
getting no answer of any kind, called it a " deaf and dumb 
devil." Had he thought of arranging a signal for "no " 
as well as for " yes" and persisted, the mystery had been 
solved. As it was, " Old Jeffry," as they named their 
visitor, did not speak with an articulate voice simply because 
he could not compass it at the time, nor could he appear to 
any one of them, although the beginnings of both such 
manifestations are apparent in the narrative. Had com- 
munication been established by a code of signals through 
the sounds which " Old Jeffry " could produce so vigorously 
there is not much doubt but that the definite form and 
the articulate voice would have followed. Unfortunately 
Wesley had little precedent to guide him in this matter, 
and did not know that those who have passed over to the 
other side of life have to acquire knowledge (even as in 
the earth life) of the conditions and powers of their new 
sphere. It takes time in many cases before one who has 
passed over is able to manifest himself to those on this side, 
either visibly or by articulate speech. New forces and 
powers have to be mastered and their use learned. In 
our own experiences at Weston the phenomena, commenc- 
ing with loud knocks, gradually advanced over a period 



502 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of several years, through a wonderful series of events, 
until they culminated in a figure apparently as real and 
solid as an ordinary mortal, and capable of conveying 
messages in a clearly audible voice. " Old Jeffry," dis- 
couraged, however, by the non-success of his extraordinary 
efforts, apparently gave up the task in despair, for we read 
that at the end of two months the " disturbance " (poor 
Jeffry 's desperate efforts to communicate) ceased, and 
nothing was heard there afterwards. Thus, in all prob- 
ability, was the advent of Modern Psychical Research put 
back nearly a century and a half. 

That these manifestations, however, exercised a marked 
influence on the mind and career of the Rector's son John 
is certain. Tyerman, in his Life and Times of Wesley, 
says : " We have little doubt that the Ep worth noises 
deepened and most powerfully increased Wesley's con- 
victions of an unseen world, and exercised an important 
influence on the whole of his future life. His notion that 
the disturbance was occasioned by a messenger of Satan* 
. . . had been shown to be utterly unfounded, but the 
impressions it produced were of the utmost consequence 
in moulding his character, and in making him one of the 



* His later and maturer conceptions are indicated by the following 
quotation from his sermon on " Good Angels " : — " The good (spirits) 
are at least equally strong, equally wise, equally vigilant, God has in 
all ages used the ministry of angels. They may assist us in our 
rsearch after truth, remove many doubts and difficulties, throw light 
on what was before dark and obscure, and confirm us in the truth 
that is after godliness." 

John Wesley was a firm believer in the power of spirits to mani- 
fest to mankind and to intelligently intervene in human affairs. 
Of this there is abundant evidence in his writings. He says : 

" What pretence have I to deny well-attested facts because I 
cannot comprehend them. It is true that many men of learning in 
Europe have given up accounts of apparitions as old wives' fables. 
I am sorry for it, and with my latest breath I will bear my testi- 
mony against giving up to infidels one of the greatest proofs of the 
invisible world. I mean that of apparitions confirmed by witnesses 
in all ages " (vide 115). 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 503 

most earnest preachers of the Christian creed that ever 
lived.* 

Dr Adam Clarke, the well-known and scholarly com- 
mentator who reprinted the whole account of these mani- 
festations in his Memoirs of the Wesley family, had in his 
possession a letter from Emily Wesley to her brother John, 
dated 16th February 1750, thirty-four years after the events 
at Epworth, in which she says : 

I want sadly to see you and talk some hours with you, as in 
times past. One doctrine of yours (and of many more), namely 
that no happiness can be found in any, or all, of the things of 
this world, I want to talk with you about, seeing that I have 
sixteen years of my own experience which lie flatly against 
it. 

Another thing is that wonderful thing called by us " Jeffry." 
You won't laugh at me for being superstitious if I tell you how 
certainly that " something " calls on me previous to any extra- 
ordinary new affliction, but so little is known of the invisible 
world that I at least am not able to judge whether it be a 
friendly or an evil spirit. 

This letter is of the deepest interest, and shows clearly 
that " that wonderful thing Jeffry," that wonderful " some- 
thing " which manifested to her and her sisters so closely 
in 1716 continued to manifest to her privately throughout 
her life. 

A brief consideration of the very numerous accounts of 
the psychical experiences of the past will convince us that 
they are of exactly the same kind as those which occur in 
the present day, showing unmistakably that the same 
phenomena and the same supernormal powers are involved, 

* The Swedish scientist and philosopher, Emanuel Swedenborg, 
the contemporary of John Wesley, possessed wonderful clairvoyant 
and psychic powers, and was a voluminous writer. In spite of this 
the world had to wait for more than a hundred years for that wave 
of psychic interest which should become a world movement, and, 
had to receive it at other hands. 



504 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

and this is precisely what we should expect to find from a 
consideration of the conditions. 

Human nature is the same in all its essentials as on the 
first Easter morning, and for those who have entered into 
the higher life time brings no decay. Henceforth they are 
as the angels of God in heaven. 

In radiant orders, essences sublime, 
In Heavenly liveries distinctly clad, 
Listening to catch the Master's least commands, 
And fly through nature ere the moment ends. 



XXV 

THE EVIDENCE OF MODERN SCIENTISTS AS TO THE REALITY 
OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA 

Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. — i Thess. v. 21. 

We are still so far from understanding all the agents in Nature 
and their different modes of action that it displays very little of the 
spirit of philosophy to deny the existence of phenomena, only 
because they are inexplicable in the actual conditions of our know- 
ledge. — -Laplace. 

Science is bound by the everlasting law of honour to face fear- 
lessly every problem which can fairly be presented to it. — Lord 
Kelvin. 

HAVING determined what is the testimony of the 
Scriptures, and what that of human experience, 
it remains for us to see what modern scientific 
research has to say upon this subject, at once the most 
profound and the most important that can engage the 
attention of mankind. 

Much has been heard during the last quarter of a century 
of the supposed conflict between science and religion, 
between the material and the spiritual. Between these 
great and abiding entities there can be no real conflict. 
Together they make up the sum total of all phenomena, 
of all manifestations and activities of which the mind of 
man can have any knowledge, or form any conception. If 
at times our ideas concerning the material and the spiritual 
appear to clash, or to be diametrically opposed, the tendency 
of advancing knowledge is to show that such misconceptions 
are the outcome of human ignorance. The time is fast 
approaching when science shall be the handmaid of faith, 
and the revelation of God's works be found consonant with 
the revelation of His will, the two forms of illumination 
constituting one harmonious and perfect whole. 

But some may ask the question, What need of science ? 
Are not the provinces of the material and the spiritual 

505 



506 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

wide apart ? Apart in a sense, but not wide apart. They 
are like unto two kingdoms having a long conterminous 
boundary line. Separate realms they may be, with widely 
differing constitutions, but they touch all along the line, 
and it is but a step across the border from one to the other. 

That the inhabitants of this world cease their labours 
and depart through the change we call death is one of the 
commonest experiences of mankind. That they return 
again to us, and that the inhabitants of that other kingdom 
can make their presence felt in this, is alike the testimony 
of Holy Scripture and of human experience. 

Now psychical manifestations rank as phenomena, and 
science being, broadly, the knowledge of phenomena, is 
concerned, and bound to investigate. 

It is not my intention to do more than touch very briefly 
upon the history of modern psychical phenomena, nor do 
I intend to weary readers with the controversies which 
have raged around them. There is a voluminous literature 
in connection with the subject and to this I would refer 
them, while in this chapter I set forth the conclusions, 
based on positive and experimental evidence, of modern 
scientists of the highest standing. We will therefore at 
once plunge in medias res. 

What may be termed the modern access of psychical 
phenomena commenced in 1847.* From the first these 
happenings, so strange and remarkable, attracted an 
extraordinary amount of interest, and investigations as 
to their reality were soon on foot. These were naturally 
of a rough and ready nature such as could be devised on 
the spur of the moment, and directed by the ingenuity 

* While public interest in the psychic phenomena of modern 
times may be said to date from the experiences of the Fox family 
at Hydesville, there had, of course, been several previous publica- 
tions of notable cases, such as those at Tedworth, Epworth, etc.; 
while in February 1846 the famous French astronomer, Arago, 
brought a case before the Acade*mie, reading a paper on the mani- 
festations he had personally witnessed . 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 507 

and common sense of the experimenters. The first investi- 
gation of any note took place after a meeting held in the 
Corinthian Hall, Rochester, U.S.A., on 14th November 
1848, at which an account of the strange experiences of 
the Fox family was given to an audience of about 400 
people. Phenomena were forthcoming at the meeting to 
those present, and at its close a committee was formed to 
investigate with the idea of finding out how the trick was 
done. All that they could do was to report that things 
happened, but how, or why, they were totally unable to 
discover. This verdict, so different from what was confi- 
dently anticipated, greatly disappointed the audience, who 
appointed a second committee, which it was expected would 
without doubt make such investigations as to completely 
expose the whole affair. When this second committee could 
do no more than confirm the report of the first, the excite- 
ment became intense, and a third body of men were elected 
to investigate. These were chosen from those who had been 
most hostile to the reports of the previous committees and 
who professed confidence in their ability to detect the im- 
posture. No blame could be attached to them for their 
want of success, for they resorted to every possible means 
which their ingenuity could devise, but they could neither 
detect any fraud nor give any explanation. When at last, 
baffled and mortified, they had to confess their failure to 
the assembly, the meeting broke up in great excitement 
and confusion and the account of these things circulated 
over the country. The genuineness of the phenomena 
witnessed in the presence of the Fox sisters in their youth 
was proved over and over again by many investigators, 
including America's most famous editor, Horace Greeley, 
and is incontestable. They have been subjected to much 
ignorant and vulgar abuse, but the facts remain. 

One of the sisters married an English barrister, Mr H. D. 
Jencken, and lived in England, and many persons have 
recorded their testimony as to the genuineness of the 



5c8 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

extraordinary phenomena witnessed in her presence. As 
recently as nth April 19 19 the famous scientist, Lord 
Rayleigh, in his presidential address before the S.P.R. 
(vide Times, 12th April 191 9), gives an account of his 
personal experiences with her, testifying to remarkable 
happenings. 

Reports of extraordinary psychical happenings began 
to be received from all parts of the States, and appeared 
to be of such an incredible nature that at last Professor Hare 
undertook to make the first scientific inquiry, with the 
object of proving that these happenings were due either to 
trickery and fraud, or could be explained by material 
causes. He was well fitted for the task, being Professor 
of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, and a man 
of acumen and ability. The public awaited the conclusion 
of the investigation confidently expecting that the result 
would be a complete exposure or a sufficient explanation. 
At last, to the surprise both of the public generally and 
men of science in particular, there appeared a large work 
illustrated with diagrams of ingenious apparatus invented 
by the author to test the genuineness of the phenomena. 
The author was Professor Hare, and the book was not, 
as was expected, a scientific exposure of fraud or a de- 
monstration of material causes, but a defence and demon- 
stration of the reality of the phenomena which he set out 
to discredit ! 

The publication of Professor Hare's work was soon 
followed by that of the Hon. J. W. Edmunds', Judge in the 
Supreme Court of Appeal in the State of New York. He 
brought to bear upon the phenomena a mind trained to sift 
evidence and a wide judicial experience. Like Professor 
Hare he started to investigate and expose a fraud, but the 
result was the publication of two large volumes testifying 
to the genuineness of the phenomena. 

From time to time accounts of these things crossed the 
Atlantic, only to be received on this side with incredulity, 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 509 

ridicule, and contempt, exactly as the narrations of the 
early Christians were first received by the Jewish and 
heathen worlds. In spite of this attitude the pheno- 
mena were soon in our midst, and a multitude of psychical 
manifestations were witnessed in this country. In January, 
1869, the London Dialectical Society began to investigate, 
and a com mittee was appointed, the co-operation of 
scientists was invited, and evidence solicited. In July, 
1871, the committee published its report in a volume of 
some 400 pages. In the introduction to this work it is 
stated that : 

A large majority of the members have become actual 
witnesses of several phases of the phenomena . . . although 
the greater part of them commenced their investigations in 
an avowedly sceptical spirit. 

Apart from the personal experiences of the various 
members of the committee, the evidence of many witnesses 
was taken. Amongst these was the Master of Lindsay, 
Lord Lindsay, afterwards Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, 
a well-known astronomer and scientist, who organised 
and equipped an expedition to observe the transit 
of Venus in 1874, erected the famous Observatory at 
Dun Echt, and rendered many services to science. His 
testimony may be taken as typical of that given by 
many others. 

Giving evidence before the cojnmittee^he says : 

I first met Mr Home at the house of a friend of his and mine, 
and when we left the party I asked him to come to my 
rooms in Grosvenor Square. As he came into the room I 
heard a shower of sounds run along a beam that crosses the 
ceiling. It sounded like the feet of a flock of sheep being 
driven over boards. This was the first thing of the sort I had 
ever heard, and naturally I was interested and wished for 
more. 

That evening I missed the train at the Crystal Palace and 
had to stay at Norwood. I got a shakedown on a sofa in 



510 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Home's * room. I was just going to sleep when I was roused. 
... I saw at the foot of my sofa what seemed to be a column 
of vapour, which grew gradually into a definite shape, and I 
then saw a female figure standing en profile. I asked Home 
if he saw anything, and he answered : "A woman looking at 
me." Our beds were at right angles to one another and about 
twelve feet apart. I saw the features perfectly, and impressed 
them upon my memory. She seemed to be dressed in a long 
wrap going down from the shoulders and not gathered in at 
the waist. The figure seemed quite solid and I could not see 
through it. Home then said : " It is my wife, she often comes 
to me " (page 270). 

She then walked to the right of the bed, and rather behind 
it, but not out of my sight, and then slowly faded away like a 
column of vapour. 

Shortly after this I saw upon my knee a flame of fire about 
nine inches high. I passed my hand through it, but it burnt 
on above and below. Home turned in his bed. I saw that 
his eyes were glowing with light, f The only time I have since 
seen this occur a lady was very much frightened by it, indeed 
I felt very uncomfortable myself. The flame which had been 
flitting about me now crossed the room about four feet from 
the ground and reached the curtains of Home's bed. These 
proved no obstruction, for the light went right through them, 
settled on his head, and then went out. 

The next morning before I went to London I was looking 
at some photographs and recognised the face I had seen in 
the room upstairs overnight. I asked Mrs Jencken who it 
was, and she said it was Home's wife. 

Examined as to the levitations of Mr Home in the air 
the Master of Lindsay continued : 

I saw the levitations in Victoria Street when Home floated 
out of the window. He first became entranced and walked 
about uneasily, he then went into the hall, and while he was 

* Daniel Dunglas Home, the well-known psychic, son of a brother 
of the Earl of Home. 

f This glowing of the eyes is a remarkable phenomenon, and was 
often observed with Home. It indicates control by, or presence 
of advanced, or high, spiritual beings. Cf. Daniel x. 6 (pages 55, 56). 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 511 

away I heard a voice whisper in my ear : " He will go out of 
one window and in at the other." I was alarmed and shocked 
at the idea of so dangerous an experiment ; I told the company 
present what I had heard, and we waited for Home's return. 
Shortly after he entered the room I heard the window go up, 
he went out of the window in a horizontal position, and I saw 
him outside the other window (that in the next room) floating 
in the air. It was eighty-five feet from the ground. There 
was no balcony between the windows, merely a strong course 
of masonry an inch and a half wide. I once saw Home in full 
light standing in the air seventeen inches from the ground. I 
have no theory to explain these things, I have tried to find out 
how they are done, but the more I studied them the more 
satisfied was I that they could not be explained by mere 
mechanical trick. I have had the fullest opportunity for 
investigation. 

Speaking of his further remarkable experiences he 
continues : 

I have frequently seen Home go to the fire and take out 
large red-hot coals and carry them about in his hands and put 
them inside his shirt. Eight times I myself have held a red- 
hot coal in my hands without injury, when it scorched my face 
on raising the coal in my hand. Once I wished to see if it 
would really burn, and I said so. I then touched a coal with 
the middle finger of my right hand and got a blister as large as 
a sixpence. I instantly asked Home to give me the coal, and I 
held the part that burnt me in the middle of my hand for three 
or four minutes without the least inconvenience. (Vide also 
Sir W. Crookes, S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. vi.) 

Finally, he testified to the obtaining of information in 
reply to questions asked mentally, which information, 
previously unknown and of great importance to the seekers, 
proved to be exactly correct on the quest being made. 

These extraordinary statements were confirmed by the 
experiences of many other credible witnesses of the highest 
standing who were examined by the committee. 

The Master of Lindsay also gave evidence as to other 
psychical phenomena of which he had been a witness, he 



512 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

generally being accompanied at the time by several other 
persons. 

The personal experiences of the members of the com- 
mittee were also invariably obtained when half-a-dozen or 
more of them were together, and when every attempt to 
investigate the cause was being made. 

The publication of this work created a sensation. The 
Press pronounced upon it in a variety of ways according 
to the lights of the respective reviewers. The Sporting 
Times, in a not very sporting spirit, said : " If I had my 
way a few of the leaders should be sent as rogues and 
vagabonds to the treadmill for a few weeks. It would do 
them good." The Pall Mall Gazette could only speak of 
such things "with contemptuous pain." In the opinion 
of The Morning Post the report was " entirely worthless," 
while The Saturday Review regarded it as "a degrading 
superstition." The Daily News averred that the subject 
"would demand more extended investigation"; The 
Spectator that " the testimony justified further cautious 
investigation." The Medical Times said : " The volume 
is a curious one, deserving of attention for several reasons." 
The London Medical Journal described it as "one of the 
most interesting and curious books that has ever been 
published, throwing light upon both sides of many im- 
portant psychological questions." The Echo had no doubt 
that if the phenomena were real they were produced by 
"as strictly natural a force as gravitation or electricity." 
The Standard thought that if there were anything in it 
beyond imposture and imbecility " there was the whole of 
another world in it," while The Times was of the opinion 
that " it is time that a thorough and practical investigation 
cleared this cloud out of the intellectual sky, and that the 
task need not be scouted by professors or other learned 
men, by Royal or other learned societies." 

As if in reply to this excellent suggestion it speedily 
became known that a member of the Royal Society, Mr 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 513 

William Crookes* (now Sir William) the Editor of The 
Chemical News and of The Quarterly Journal of Science, 
discoverer of Thalium, and inventor of the Radiometer, one 
of the most eminent physicists that this country has 
produced, was preparing to scientifically test and inves- 
tigate these happenings. 

This announcement was generally received with satis- 
faction. People said : " Now we shall see this superstitious 
nonsense extinguished," and Mr Crookes' report was awaited 
with no little interest. In due time these reports appeared, 
published first in The Quarterly Journal oj Science and 
afterwards collected together and bound under the title 
of Investigations into the Phenomena called Spiritual. 

These investigations extended over the period 1870- 
1874. To the astonishment of those scientists and others 
who had expected that the trained observational powers of 
the eminent chemist and physicist would give the death- 
blow to the " superstition," and cover the report of the 
Dialectical Society with ridicule, it was found that his 
observations confirmed on almost every point the evidence 
given before the committee, but that his testimony was 
even more startling and convincing because backed by 
that of photography and delicate self-registering instru- 
ments. The general attitude of the scientific world to- 
wards these phenomena at this time will be apparent from 
that of such men as Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, and Faraday. 

Huxley, in answer to a letter from the Dialectical Society 
inviting him to investigate, replied : 

Supposing the phenomena to be genuine they do not interest 
me. ( !) 

* Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry and author 
of many important works, Past President of the Chemical Society, 
Past President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Royal 
Medallist, Bakerian Lecturer of the Royal Society, President of 
the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1898, 
Proprietor and Editor of The Chemical News, Editor of The Quarterly 
Journal oj Science. 



514 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

As the Rev. J. Page Hopps pungently remarks : 

This pronouncement of Huxley was extremely unscientific 
and discreditable, " for the discovery of a new order of intelli- 
gent beings should be at least as interesting to a man of science 
as that of a new order of jellyfish or grubs." * 

Herbert Spencer, in answer to similar requests to con- 
sider and investigate, replied with the remarkable dictum : 

I have settled this question on a priori grounds. (!) 

While the attitude of Tyndall is best illustrated by the 
account given by Alfred Russel Wallace (My Life, page 279). 
Speaking of TyndalPs visit, he there says : 

Although I begged him to appoint a day for the next 
experiment he never came again. 

The emphasis on the word in italics has reference to 
another scientist, Dr Carpenter, who in response to Pro- 
fessor Wallace's invitation had also previously been present 
on one occasion, and " though strongly urged to come at 
least two or three times more, could never be prevailed on 
to come again," but in spite of this and the fact that Dr 
Carpenter never made any really serious investigation 
into the phenomena, this did not prevent him evolving 
a theory to account for them. According to him they 
were produced by "unconscious cerebration" on the 
part of those present. Previously Faraday had disposed 
of them by yet another theory, which involved the aid of 
" unconscious muscular pressure." Those who are familiar 
with the phenomena in all their variety, and who have 

* This was in 1869. In 1883 he wrote to John Morley (vide 
Recollections, vol. i., pages 145-147) : " I find my dislike to the thought 
of extinction increasing as I grow older. It flashes across me with 
a sort of horror that in 1900 I shall know no more of what is going 
on than I did in 1800. I had sooner be in hell." 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 515 

made a careful and prolonged investigation, are aware that 
both theories are ridiculously inadequate to explain a tithe 
of the things observed. To some of the experiences of A. R. 
Wallace, the famous naturalist and co-discoverer and pro- 
mulgator with Darwin of Natural Selection and the theory 
of Evolution, I shall have to refer, premising that his 
investigations were published about the time that those of 
Sir W. Crookes were given to the world. To return now 
to those of Sir William Crookes. They were undertaken in 
a true scientific spirit with but one object, the recording of 
observed facts and the ascertaining of the truth. Through- 
out the entire series of the experiments, Sir William had 
complete control of the conditions, and the persons experi- 
mented with were delivered entirely into the hands of 
himself and his friends. The investigations took place in 
his own houses in the light, and under his own personal 
supervision. For a full account of them I refer readers to 
his remarkable series of articles * which Sir William pub- 
lished in The Quarterly Journal of Science, and also to an 
account set forth in vol. vi. of Proceedings of the Society 
for Psychical Research. 

In pages of the deepest interest he gives the results of 
observations and experiments which confirm in a remark- 
able manner the evidence brought before the Dialectical 
Society. In the course of these experiments he testifies 
to the observation of luminous clouds, and of innumerable 
small lights flitting about the room, and even resting upon 
the heads of those present (the Pentecostal lights, cf. Acts 
ii. 2). 

Sounds of varied import were heard, and intelligible 
messages were conveyed by them as also by flashes of 
light seen in the air (heliograph wise). Hands visible and 
tangible were often seen and felt, and are described as 
being of a perfectly natural and human appearance. These 
hands were observed to form from luminous clouds, and 

* " Notes of an Inquiry into the Phenomena called Spiritual." 



5i6 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

on being grasped firmly would melt away in the hand of 
the experimenter. 

With regard to the phenomenon termed " levitation " 
— i.e. the floating of the human body in the air without 
apparent cause, or tangible or visible support — often re- 
lated, by the way, of the saints in mediaeval times, and 
until recently scouted as an absurd fiction — he avers that 
he observed Home floating in the air on several occasions 
with no support tangible or visible, and that he has received 
similar testimony from Captain C. Wynne, the Earl of 
Dunraven, and Lord Lindsay, and gives it as his opinion 
that no fact in history is attested by better evidence. 

Many other phenomena are mentioned, among others the 
proofing the body against fire, direct writing and the play- 
ing of musical instruments, the setting in motion of a 
pendulum enclosed in a glass case firmly cemented to the 
wall, whilst the shaking of the room by strong vibrations 
(cf. Acts iv. 31), together with the phenomena of wind 
currents and intense cold, are also recorded. 

Of the complete solid and tangible manifestation of 
forms, known as materialisation, Sir William had the most 
remarkable experiences on record. Under the strictest 
conditions, making deception or mistake an impossibility, 
a figure endowed with all the attributes of life, visible, 
tangible, and audible, appeared on many occasions, some- 
times for hours, yet it could and did vanish on the instant. 
Photography was called in to verify some of these facts, 
and over forty photographs were taken with cameras of 
various sizes, a stereoscopic camera being also used. The 
figure called " Katie " was photographed standing side by 
side with Sir William, and also side by side with Miss 
Cook, through whom the experiments and investigations 
were (in this instance) made, and the difference of height, 
appearance, and individuality thus permanently recorded. 
This testimony was received with abuse, incredulity, and 
contempt. Those who had relied upon the skilled investi- 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 517 

gator's ability to crush out what they termed a degrading 
superstition now turned upon him, and being unable to dis- 
prove his statements took refuge in the assertion that he 
and Professor Wallace " were mad on this one subject." On 
what principle they accepted the conclusions of "madmen " 
on the questions of Natural Selection, Helium, and the 
Radiometer, they did not stop to explain. On the other 
hand a host of critics wanted to know whether certain 
precautions had been taken in the conducting of the experi- 
ments.* " Were the doors locked?" "Was the person 
experimented with searched ? " " Was she under careful 
supervision ? " It never seemed to enter into the heads of 
these people that these elementary safeguards would occur 
to the keen intellect and trained mind of the experimenter. 
Reviewing his investigations more than twenty-five years 
after, Sir William, speaking at a meeting of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science in 1898, said 
he had nothing to retract and still held to the truth of 
what he had recorded. 

Sir William repeated this statement in the pages of Light 
for 9th December 1916. There he says : 

Responding to your invitation I have no objection to re- 
affirm my position on the subject of what are known as psychi- 
cal phenomena, and to state once more, as I stated in my 
presidential address to the British Association in 1898, that in 
regard to my investigations, first entered upon by me more 
than forty years ago, I adhere to my published statements and 
have nothing to retract. That I have not hitherto considered 
it necessary to commit myself to any generalisations upon the 
facts to which I have drawn attention does not in any way 
invalidate my testimony regarding the facts themselves. In my 
opinion they substantiate the claims made for them by several 
of my colleagues and friends in the Society for Psychical Re- 
search — viz. that they point to the existence of another order 

* The Bible accounts of similar happenings are accepted without 
any question being raised as to precautions. 



518 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of human life continuous with this, and demonstrate the possi- 
bility in certain circumstances of connection between this 
world and the next. 

William Crookes. 
Nov. 28th, 1916. 

Sir William began the investigation with the idea that the 
phenomena were all due to fraud and trickery. He ended 
by staking his scientific reputation on their genuineness. 

Before passing on to the testimony of A. R. Wallace, 
we must note the experiments of Cromwell Varley, the 
eminent electrician and scientist, whose name is for ever 
associated with the laying of the Atlantic cable, and of 
W. F. Myers, the cultured author of Human Personality. 
Each of these gentlemen taking precautions to ensure that 
there should be no other person present but the experi- 
menters and the one experimented upon, narrowed down 
the question of the appearance of other figures to one of 
impersonation by the one through whom the experiments 
were being made. As the figures (male and female) of 
adults and children walked about the room, were visible, 
audible, and tangible, this, in the case of fraud, would 
have necessitated considerable movements on the part of 
the impersonator. Therefore, to test this, Mr Cromwell 
Varley made the person experimented upon part of an 
electric circuit in which was a delicate mirror galvano- 
meter, so arranging matters that it was impossible to 
move about without instant detection. In spite of this 
the figures appeared in every part of the room, while the 
circuit remained unbroken. This experiment was after- 
wards repeated by Sir W. Crookes. Myers devised an 
equally certain method of detecting movements on the part 
of the one experimented with by making the psychic lie in 
a hammock. This was suspended from the ceiling by 
ropes passing through pulleys and attached to a weighing 
machine. Obviously to leave or regain the hammock 
without instant detection was an impossibility. Yet with 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 519 

doors locked and the above precautions many figures 
appeared, of children as well as adults, who walked about 
the apartment and touched the experimenters. 

Perhaps even more decisive were the experiments of 
Smedley, Adshead and others, at Belper and Newcastle, in 
which the person through whom the phenomena were 
produced was enclosed in a wire cage, screwed up from the 
outside, and yet many figures of various sizes and ages 
showed themselves. 

The forecasting of events, and the speaking and writing 
in languages unknown to the agent, were strongly testified 
to by Signor Damiani, and there are many witnesses to 
these forms of manifestation, among others Alfred Russel 
Wallace, who mentions instances in his autobiography. 

Cromwell Varley, the electrician, also stated that he had 
several times had information of events several days or 
weeks before they happened, which events took place in 
exact fulfilment (even to the hour and minute) of the pre- 
diction ; he also testified to healing powers abnormally 
obtained and directed and in all probability similar in 
nature to those indicated in James v. 14-15 and 1 Cor. xii. 
9, and to those manifested at Lourdes, or lately shown 
through Mr James Hickson, whose cures have been attested 
by clergy and laity. Now one thing cannot fail to impress 
the student of these things, and that is the fact that while 
nearly every investigator has begun his researches in an 
avowedly sceptical spirit with the object of explaining the 
phenomena on a purely material basis, or exposing them as 
fraudulent, they have almost invariably ended by being 
convinced of the supernormal and spiritual nature of the 
phenomena. Sir W. Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, A. R. 
Wallace, Cromwell Varley, F. W. Myers, Professor Hare, 
Dr Maxwell, Judge Edmonds, Professors Richet, Lombroso, 
Dr Hodgson and Professor Morselli are notable instances, 
illustrating more or less completely this change and con- 
viction, and there are many others. 



520 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Come we now to the testimony of Professor Wallace,* the 
eminent naturalist. For a full account the reader should 
refer to his book of personal experience (Miracles and 
Modern Spiritual Phenomena). Perhaps the most remark- 
able one he relates is given in my chapter on Materialisation 
(page 372). Of modern psychic investigation and belief 
in the phenomena testified to thereby he says : 

It has grown and spread continuously till, in spite of ridicule, 
misrepresentation and persecution it has gained converts in 
every grade of society and in every civilised portion of the 
globe. 

It has often been urged that these experiments are not 
made by men who have made a close study of medicine, 
physiology, and nervous disorders. As a matter of fact 
we have the published observations of three investigators 
peculiarly qualified in these very studies : Dr Joseph 
Maxwell, with his double training of physician and lawyer ; 
Professor Lombroso,f Inspector of the Asylums for the 
Insane in Italy, an authority on diseases of the nervous 
system ; and Professor Enrico Morselli, the well-known 
alienist and neuropathologist. Dr Joseph Maxwell, f author 
of Metapsychical Phenomena, recently published, has been 
engaged in this investigation on strictly scientific lines for 
several years. As one reads the work recording his investi- 
gations and experiments, it is most interesting to note how 
gradually the scepticism of the scientist gives way to the 
logic of facts and the spiritual hypothesis replaces the 
material. By his kindness I am permitted to give the 
following extracts from his work Metapsychical Phenomena. 

* Alfred Russel Wallace, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., the eminent 
naturalist and scientist, co- discoverer and promulgator with Darwin 
of Natural Selection and the Theory of Evolution. 

•j* Cesare Lombroso, Professor of Psychology at the University 
of Turin, Inspector of Asylums for the Insane in Italy. 

% Joseph Maxwell, Doctor of Law, Doctor of Medicine, Deputy 
Attorney- General at the Court of Appeal, Bordeaux. 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 521 

Although his experiences are not so striking as those of 
Sir William Crookes, yet as far as they go they confirm them. 
Here let us notice that our evidence is cumulative, and 
this quality is an especial feature of it. All down the ages 
the testimony for spiritual things has been iterated and 
reiterated, and now when men of science take the place 
of the simple and the unlearned, the same piling up of evi- 
dence goes on, every succeeding investigator confirming the 
results of those who have preceded him, and adding to the 
testimony for the genuineness of the phenomena. Writing 
in the first place of the spontaneity of these phenomena, he 
gives it as the result of his experience, as did Sir W. Crookes, 
that they are the result of an intelligence which is apart 
from that of the experimenters, or the one experimented 
with. On this head he says (pages 40 and 112) : 

One of the most curious features of psychical phenomena 
is their apparent independence. The phenomena direct us, 
they do not allow themselves to be easily led. 

The phenomena often manifest great independence, and 
refuse decidedly to yield to the will of the experimenters. 

Confirming the observations of Crookes as to audible 
sounds, he says (page 75 et seq.) : 

I have obtained loud sounds in public places. The unusual 
noise attracted the attention of persons present and greatly 
embarrassed us. 

As showing that the sounds on this occasion were entirely 
independent and beyond their control, he adds : 

The more we were confused by the noise the louder the 
sounds became. 

Continuing, he relates how he has heard loud sounds given 

upon the floors of museums before the pictures of old masters, 
and especially before religious pictures. I particularly re- 
member the intensity of certain sounds I once heard when 



522 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

standing before a picture of the burial of Christ, the work of 
a celebrated artist. I have also heard fine sounds in the house 
of a famous writer. In the room in which he died they were 
so loud as to attract the suspicious attention of the guardian. 

While Dr Maxwell has had no experiences of the mani- 
festations of fully materialised forms to relate, he gives 
accounts of partial materialisations, as follows :— 

I have had the opportunity of experimenting with a private 
psychic when alone, when I succeeded in seeing faces which I 
recognised. 

Again he writes (page 153) : 

In a short time we heard sounds on the table, on my friend's 
chair, on the floor, and on the wall inside the curtains. My 
friend, interested, turned half round towards the curtains, when 
all at once, after the production of some faint flitting lights, 
I perceived the beautiful face of a woman, pale, the eyes up- 
lifted as in prayer. The eyes and hair were black, the face 
was draped in a white veil, which also covered the head, form- 
ing a kind of frame to the face. The physiognomy was of the 
sweetest and of rare beauty. 

Again, on another occasion : 

Suddenly I saw a face, the forehead, eyes, and nose repro- 
ducing the traits of a very dear friend I had recently lost. 
The person with whom I was experimenting saw the whole 
face. 

It will be apparent from a perusal of these observations 
that the comparatively recent experiences of Dr Maxwell 
in France confirm on many points the investigations of 
Crookes in England forty-five years ago. 

These investigations are in turn confirmed and reinforced 
by those of Professor Morselli and Drs Agazotti, Herlitzka, 
and Professor Pio Foa, all well-known Italian savants and 
professional men. These gentlemen in turn testify in the 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIEN1ISTS 523 

strongest and most positive terms to the reality of the 
phenomena. On this head Professor Morselli * says 
{Annals of Psychical Science, May, 1907) : 



But to those who ask me what I think of the physical pheno- 
mena, and whether I think them real, authentic, I say yes. 
These phenomena, the acceptance of which I at first considered 
to be due to deception or gullibility, to fraud or illusion of the 
senses, to simple faith or preconception, are in the very great 
majority real and certain, and the small minority, as to which 
I am uncertain, do not in any way disprove the existence of a 
category of extraordinary facts, equal to those which come 
under the criteria of normal reasoning and are verified and 
accepted in accordance with the experimental method. 

If for many years academic science has depreciated the whole 
category of facts. ... So much the worse for science. And 
worse still for the scientists who have remained deaf and blind 
before the affirmations, not of credulous sectarians, but of 
serious and worthy observers, such as Crookes, Lodge, and 
Richet. I myself, as far as my modest power went, contri- 
buted to this obstinate scepticism until the day when I was 
enabled to break the chains in which my absolutist precon- 
ceptions had bound my judgment. 

I was a bitter sceptic with regard to the objective reality of 
the phenomena. 

To-day, furnished with an experience, after long and mature 
reflection on what I have seen and touched with my hand, I 
have changed my belief. 



Truly a notable confession this on the part of an eminent 
scientist, and as brave and honest as it is noteworthy. 

Proceeding, he divides the phenomena he has personally 
experienced into no less than thirty-nine classes, and in 
the course of his descriptions confirms nearly all the obser- 
vations of Sir William Crookes. 

Here are some of the more remarkable : 

* Enrico Morselli, Director of the Clinic of Nervous and Mental 
Diseases at the University of Genoa. 



524 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Wind Currents. 

These are very frequent and felt on almost every occasion. 
They are veritable currents of air, which come from the curtains 
and from behind the person experimented with. 

Intense Cold. 

This is usually the prelude to many manifestations. On 
certain occasions it becomes perceptible to all the persons 
present. 

It is impressive and not hallucinatory.* 

Blows and other Sounds. 

Hundreds of these sounds have been heard. Some have 
the intensity of blows delivered by a powerful but invisible 
fist. 

Sounds of Musical Instruments. 

We have had these under such conditions as to exclude all 
action of visible and tangible hands, the trumpets emit their 
harsh sounds in the air, the strings of mandolines and zithers 
vibrate, and keys of the pianoforte give forth notes, and all 
this without anyone visibly touching them. 

Appearances of Hands. 

At certain times we felt ourselves touched by hands having 
all the characteristics of those of a living being — we felt the 
skin, the warmth, the movable fingers. On grasping them one 
experienced the sensation of hands dissolving away as though 
composed of semi-fltiid substance. They appear of a whitish 
colour, almost transparent, with elongated fingers. 

Appearances of Lights.^ 

These vary from indefinable glow lights to bright globules 
and veritable tongues of fire, like those figured on the heads 

* Sir W. Crookes compares it to that in the vicinity of frozen 
mercury. It has been observed to affect the thermometer. 

f These small luminous appearances are extremely beautiful, 
and form one of the most interesting sights it is possible to witness. 
I have seen them flash out in the air and from the surface of curtains 
on a level with one's face, and high up near the ceiling, beyond 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 525 

of the Apostles. There are also appearances of luminous clouds 
or mists. 

Complete Materialisation. 

I have seen these supreme phenomena a few times only. 
They are well-delineated faces, heads, and half busts. 

It will be perceived how thoroughly this eminent Italian 
alienist and neuropathologist confirms the observations of 
our own Crookes. 

reach. I have seen them in showers " distributing asunder " 
(diafxepL^o/nevoi, sundering and distributing) in the room exactly 
as described, in Acts ii. 3. They seem to consist of a bright nucleus 
whence a flame or coma emerges having a length of about two 
inches. (Occasionally these smaller lights are accompanied by 
larger patches, or clouds of beautiful luminosity of a most delicate 
and ethereal appearance.) The nucleus is about the size of a pea 
and flashes out from the darkness, to be followed instantly by the 
flame or tail- like flare, which seems to burst noiselessly from it, 
both then ceasing to be visible. Their duration is usually from one 
to two seconds, but sometimes they last longer. I have endeavoured 
to imitate them by chemical and electrical means, but with an entire 
want of success. Various preparations of phosphorus, small electric 
flash lamps, etc., etc., are ludicrously inadequate to produce effects 
in the slightest degree similar, and I doubt whether, in the present 
state of scientific knowledge, it is possible to exactly imitate them. 
On this head Professor Enrico Morselli writes : " It is ;impossible, as 
well as absurd, for those who have once seen them, to compare them 
to artificial phosphorescent effects, not to speak of identifying them 
with the latter." The light which one observes in a large vacuum 
tube when connected to a powerful induction coil is, in my experi- 
ence, that which most closely resembles in appearance that of the 
larger clouds and patches (vide page 279), only whereas that in the 
tube is strictly localised and confined within a small space, these 
psychical lights move over considerable distances and are often 
several feet in diameter. The nearest thing to the nucleus of the 
smaller luminosities that I could produce was obtained between 
small carbon points attached to the terminal wires of a battery of 
six or eight Bichromate cells, with an E.M.F. of 10 or 12 volts. 
On approaching the carbon points to one another, in subdued 
daylight, a soft intense ball of light about the size of a pea was 
produced closely resembling the nucleus, but nothing resembling 
the tail-like flare or the combined nucleus and flare could be pro- 
duced by any means I could devise. — C.L.T. (461, 515, 522). 



526 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Let us now refer briefly to the testimony of Drs Herlitzka, 
Agazotti, C. Foa, and Professor Pio Foa, of the University 
of Turin, contained in the Annals for May, 1907. The 
first three are the assistants of Professor Mosso, the eminent 
physiologist, whose works, now looked upon as classics, 
are universally known. Dr Pio Foa is Professor of Patho- 
logical Anatomy in the University of Turin, Director of 
the Anatomical Museum, and Secretary of the Academy of 
Sciences. They give a full account of extraordinary ex- 
periences covering almost the whole range of the pheno- 
mena, and backed by photographic and manumetric 
evidence, which in turn confirms the testimony of Morselli. 

In the introduction to their report they say : 

Moreover, all of us had the conviction that these phenomena 
would not stand the test of attentive observation and control 
exercised without favour. 

After having seen with our eyes and controlled with our 
own senses, now that we are persuaded that the phenomena 
are authentic, we feel it to be a duty to state the fact publicly 
in our turn and to proclaim that the few pioneers in this branch 
of biology, destined to become one of the most important, 
generally observed and saw correctly. The facts of the mar- 
vellous which we are about to relate will make some frown and 
many smile. We understand ; no one can have a conception 
of what the phenomena are like unless he has been present. 

Here again is another notable confession on the part of 
medical men and scientists. This is the only true attitude 
in this investigation. We must be truth seekers and follow 
where truth leads regardless of consequences. 

Mr Gambier Bolton, President of the Psychological 
Society, Lecturer before the Royal Society, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., 
says, in his work on Materialisation : 

In the face of facts such as I have recorded is it any wonder 
that I and those who assisted me, supported as we are by the 
evidence of Sir William Crookes, Alfred Russel Wallace and 






THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 527 

other master scientists, should declare positively that we have 
both seen and handled entities from another sphere ? 

It would be rank cowardice on my part were I to keep silence 
any longer as to the results I have obtained during the seven 
years which I devoted to a critical investigation of this pheno- 
menon. 

The facts have beaten me. 

Vice-Admiral Usborne Moore was engaged in scientific 
work under Government nearly all his life, and was a man 
of acute observation, especially trained to observe and record 
accurately. As the result of seven years' investigation, 
during which he travelled thousands of miles, and spent 
large sums of money, he says : 

If I never see another psychic again the evidence I have 
obtained will make me sure of the future. I shall go to my 
grave in the conviction that in a brief space — a few days — I 
shall awaken in the possession of the same individuality that 
was mine before breath left my body. I have come to the 
absolute conviction that what we call death is a mere incident, 
a door to a higher life that is in reality more substantial to 
the senses we shall hereafter possess than the one we set so 
much store upon here. 

This testimony is from a man who was a fearless and 
whole-hearted seeker of the truth.* 

* Benjamin Franklin, the distinguished statesman and natural 
philosopher, was another truth-seeker, and ranks as a scientist of 
renown. Psychical research was practically unknown in his day, 
but still he evidently had the root of the matter in him, and his 
acute mind had completely mastered the essentials. Writing to 
Miss Hubbard on the occasion of the death of his brother, Mr John 
Franklin, he says : 

" I condole with you. We have lost a most dear relation. But 
it is the will of God that these mortal bodies be laid aside when the 
soul is ready to enter into real life. This is rather an embryo state, 
a preparation for living. A man is not completely born until he is 
dead. Why, then, should we grieve that a new child is born among 
the immortals ? We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us 
while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, 
or doing good to our fellow- creatures, is a kind and benevolent act 



528 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

As the result of my own experience and investigation 
I have come to the same absolute conviction (page 219). 

Professor Richet, Member of the Academy of Medicine, 
and Professor of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine, 
Paris, the eminent French savant, has given many years to 
this investigation. Some of his observations will be found 
in the chapter on Materialisation. 

Speaking of his experiences of Materialisation he says : 

It seems to me the facts are undeniable. I am convinced 
that I have been present at realities. Certainly I cannot say 
in what materialisation consists. I am ready to maintain 
that there is something profoundly mysterious in it which will 
change from top to botton our ideas on nature and on life. 

Professor Lombroso, Professor of Psychology at the Uni- 
versity of Turin and Inspector of Asylums for the Insane in 
Italy, is another instance of an eminent scientist who has 
been beaten by the facts, and, like an honest man, has said 
so to the world. He has given forth his experiences in a 
notable book, After Death, What ? 

He says : 

I am ashamed and grieved at having opposed with so much 
tenacity the possibility of the psychic facts — the facts exist 
and I boast of being a slave to facts. There can be no doubt 
that genuine psychical phenomena are produced by intelli- 



of God. When they become unfit for these purposes and afford us 
pain instead of pleasure — instead of an aid become an encumbrance, 
and answer none of the intentions for which they were given us — ■ 
it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which 
we may get rid of them. Death is that way. 

" Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure, 
which is to last for ever. His chair was ready first and he is gone 
before us. We could not all conveniently start together ; and why 
should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and 
know where to find him ? " 

Noble words these. No man could pen them who was not " in 
tune with the Infinite." 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 529 

gences totally independent of the psychic and the parties 
present at the sittings. On every occasion I have found this. 

Sir William Barrett, F.R.S., founder of the Society for 
Psychical Research, and Professor of Experimental Physics 
in the Royal College of Science for Ireland, says : 

I am absolutely convinced of the fact that those who have 
once lived on earth can and do communicate with us. 

It is hardly possible to convey to others who have not had 
a similar experience an adequate idea of the strength and 
cumulative force of the evidence that has compelled one's own 
belief. 

And again : 

I have failed to find that any person who ridicules spiritual 
phenomena has given to the subject any serious and patient 
consideration. Moreover I venture to assert that any fair- 
minded person who devotes to its careful and dispassionate 
investigation as many days, or even hours, as some of us have 
given years, will find it impossible to continue sitting in the 
seat of the scornful. 

This has also been my experience. One invariably finds 
that the bitter sceptic has had either little or no personal 
experience, and has never taken the trouble to make any 
investigation worthy of the name. The opinions of such 
persons are entirely worthless. 

Lord Rayleigh, eminent as a scientist, testifies to the fact 
(Times, 12th April 1919) that Crookes once placed his finger 
at random upon a copy of The Times which was behind his 
back and which neither he nor the automatic writer whom he 
was testing could see. On asking what letter was covered 
by his finger tip the pencil slowly wrote " however." He 
then turned round and found that this was the identical 
word covered by his finger ! Telepathy between the' in- 
carnate and all anti-spiritual theories are swept aside by 
such experiences (page 482). 

2L 



530 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Dr Hodgson, formerly of Cambridge University, spent 
many years in investigation, and was at one time notoriously 
sceptical. Later he wrote : 

During a period of twelve years I have had, through Mrs 
Piper, communications with the spirits of those who have been 
for some time dead. During the first few years I absolutely 
disbelieved in her power. I had but one object, to discover 
fraud and trickery. Frankly, I went to Mrs Piper with Pro- 
fessor James of Harvard University about twelve years ago 
with the object of unmasking her. To-day I am prepared to 
say that I believe in the possibility of receiving messages from 
what is called the world of spirits. I entered the house pro- 
foundly materialist, not believing in the continuance of life 
after death ; to-day I say I believe. The truth has been given 
to me in such a way as to remove from me the possibility of a 
doubt. 

The famous astronomer, Camille Flammarion, author of 
many standard works on philosophy, on astronomy and 
other sciences, and also of Les Forces Naturelles Inconnus, 
a scientist and investigator of the first rank, says, speaking 
of psychic phenomena : 

I do not hesitate to affirm my conviction, based on personal 
examination of the subject, that any man who declares the 
phenomena to be impossible is one who speaks without know- 
ing what he is talking about ; and also that any man accus- 
tomed to scientific observation— provided that his mind is not 
biassed by preconceived opinions — may acquire a radical and 
absolute certainty of the reality of the facts alluded to. 

More recently a compatriot of the above, Dr Gustave 
Geley, laureate of the French Medical Faculty, after an 
extended series of investigations, says that he has had the 
fullest and most convincing evidence of the reality of the 
phenomena (confirming the experience of Baron von 
Schrenk-Notzing), and that the facts revealed necessitate 
" the complete overthrow of materialistic physiology," and 
that "the materialistic conception of the universe is false 
and cannot be reconciled with our present biological know- 



THE TESTIMONY OF MODERN SCIENTISTS 531 

ledge " {Annates des Sciences Psychiques, Nov. 1918-March 
1919). 

To touch upon the researches of the Comte de Gasparin, 
Professors Zollner, Dr Morgan, Thury and Aksakoff, Drs 
Gully, Elliotson, Gregory, Haddock, Hyslop and a host of 
others would extend this chapter to undue length. Suffi- 
cient has been given to show the trend of modern scientific 
thought in the direction of things spiritual. 

It is characteristic of this evidence that it is cumulative. 
One investigator confirms the researches of another and 
adds his testimony to the pile until the evidence becomes 
overwhelming. 

As has been justly remarked : 

If human testimony is capable of establishing anything, 
then it has absolutely proved the fact of survival. 

I bring this chapter to a close with the testimony of 
another well-known scientist, Sir Oliver Lodge, the eminent 
Principal of Birmingham University, whose notable book, 
Raymond (Methuen), has passed through several editions. 
Speaking, on a recent occasion, in Browning Hall, Walworth, 
he said : 

I tell you, with all the strength of conviction which I can 
muster, that we do persist, that people still continue to take 
an interest in what is going on, that they know far more about 
things on this earth than we do, and are able from time to time 
to communicate with us. 

Communication is possible, but one must obey the laws, 
first finding out the conditions. I do not say it is easy, but it 
is possible, and I have conversed with my friends just as I can 
converse with any one in this audience now. 

Being scientific men, these friends have given proof of their 
identity, proof that it was really they, not some personation 
or something emanating from myself. I have no doubt what- 
soever about it, though for many years, ever since the eighties, 
I have tried all sorts of other explanations, but these, one after 
another, have been eliminated, and I have proved that the 



532 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

people who communicate are who and what they say they are. 
The conclusion is that survival of existence is scientifically 
proved by scientific investigation. 

It has been argued that this scientific certainty tends to 
destroy reverence and the spirit of worship. Has our in- 
creased knowledge of astronomy and other sciences lessened 
our reverence for the Creator ? A thousand times No ! 
We realise as never before that 

Earth's crammed with Heaven 

And every common bush afire with God. 

We need have no fear of exhausting the mystery and beauty 
of the universe. As yet we gather but the pebbles on the 
shore. Before us lie the infinities of time and space. 

Still must our cry be : 

Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise 
God, be honour and glory, throughout all ages. Amen. 



XXVI 

THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION TOWARDS PSYCHIC PHENOMENA 

Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord of 
hosts. — Zech. iv. 6. 

Add to your faith . . . knowledge. — -2 Peter i. 5. 

I know of no rule which forbids a Christian to examine into this 
system. It is a question, in the first instance, of evidence. — W. E. 
Gladstone. 

There is a principle which is a bar to human progress and that 
cannot fail, where adopted, to keep man in everlasting ignorance, 
and that is contempt prior to investigation.- — Paley. 

Is anything of God's contriving endangered by inquiry ? Was 
it the system of the universe, or the monks, that trembled at the 
telescope of Galileo ? Did the circulation of the firmament stop 
because Newton laid a finger on its pulse ? — -Lowell 

After all that which is true must be admitted.— Bishop Butler. 

THE total absence from the official, organised life and 
work of the Churches in modern times of those 
psychical and " supernatural " * phenomena which 
are to be found on almost every page of the Bible is a fact 
which cannot fail to impress the student of religious history. 

These psychical phenomena, commonly but incorrectly 
termed supernatural, run like a golden thread through the 
Old and New Testaments, and lend an interest and influence 
to the Bible possessed by no other volume. 

It is therefore with something akin to amazement that 
one finds a total absence from the organised religious life 
and work of the present day of psychical experiences such 
as marked Old and New Testament times. 

What is the reason for this most significant fact ? 

Has some alteration taken place in the order and rule of 
the Cosmos ? 

Has God withdrawn from active participation in the 
affairs of men, and, taking the angels with him, retired to 
some distant part of the universe ? 

* I.e. supernormal. 

533 



534 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Has human nature in some way changed since Bible times, 
so that men can no longer receive or participate in such 
psychical experiences as are anciently recorded ? 

Has communication between the two worlds ceased, and 
is revelation closed ? 

Or is the whole Old and New Testament record of psychical 
and supernormal occurrences mere myth and fable from 
beginning to end, and must we cry hopelessly- 
Alike for those who for To-day prepare, 
And those that after a To-morrow stare, 

A voice from out the Tower of Darkness cries, 
Fools ! your reward is neither Here nor There ! * 

— as some would have us do ? 

Careful investigation and inquiry lead to the conclusion 
that the order and rule of the Cosmos is fixed and unchang- 
ing ; that God is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever ; 
that human nature has not changed one iota in its essentials ; 
that the record of the psychic and supernormal happenings 
found in the Bible is a record of facts ; that revelation is not 
closed, but in a continuous process ; that communication 
between the two worlds still obtains, and that the angels 
are with us yet. 

Wherein then lies the cause of the striking difference 
between the experiences of the Churches in the days of old 
and in modern times ? 

The fault lies not on the side of the angels but on the 
side of the Churches. 

The angels keep their ancient places. 
Turn but a stone, ye start a wing. 
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces 
That miss the ever splendid thing. 

Not where the wheeling systems darken, 
And your benumbed conceiving soars, 
The drift of pinions, would ye hearken, 
Beats at your own clay -shuttered doors, f 

* Omar Khayyam t Francis Thompson. 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 535 

The Churches have gradually become estranged, and now 
deliberately maintain estrangement, from all conscious 
touch with the spirit world, and therefore from all psychic 
and " supernatural " experiences. Constantly invoking 
the " Holy Spirit," their attitude is such as to completely 
cut them off from those good or holy spiritual manifesta- 
tions which were the privilege and constant experience of 
the Early Christian Church (186). Several causes have 
contributed to bring about this state of affairs. 

The Churches of the present day are labouring under 
fundamental misconceptions which are a source of weak- 
ness, and will continue to be so until they are cast aside. 

The first of these is the insistence on the internal witness 
of the emotions upon the mind of each individual believer 
as evidence to him of the reality of his spiritual experiences 
and of the world of spiritual things, while all modern, 
external and objective evidence, or the possibility of prac- 
tical communion with the discarnate, even in answer to 
prayer (vide 62), is steadily rejected, the dictum being 
broadly laid down that "we walk by faith and not by sight. " 

The result is that the Christian Church of the present day 
relies mainly for the evidence of the spirit world and 
spritual experiences upon mere emotionalism, or mental 
states, which for aught she can prove to the contrary, under 
her present system, may be purely subjective, and so have 
no evidential value. 

Here let it be noted that a changed life, the turning 
from evil courses to good ones, is, of itself, no proof of the 
reality of the spirit world, apart from objective psychic 
phenomena. Such change may result from the reception 
and practice of an entirely non-spiritual philosophy. 

By this attitude the Churches cut themselves off from the 
possibility of effective proof of the reality of that spirit 
world in which they constantly profess to believe, but of 
which under their present regime they are totally unable 
to give any demonstration, for all the writings of the theo- 



536 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

logians, apart from evidential psychic experiences and ob- 
jective psychic phenomena, can do no more than establish a 
probability that there is a spirit world, or that man survives 
the death of his mortal body (222). 

The outcome is a humiliating situation, for if any seeker 
goes to the accredited exponents of religious belief and asks 
for objective evidence of the present-day existence of those 
spiritual beings, or that spirit world, or that resurrection 
from the dead of which so much is said in the literature of 
the various religious bodies, he finds to his astonishment 
that the accredited ministers of the Churches are, as a body 
and in their official capacity, unable to give him any proof 
whatsoever ! One cannot well have less than nothing. 

Christ certainly did not contemplate such a state of 
affairs when he said : 

These signs shall follow them that believe. — Mark xvi. 17, 18, 

or when he gave the promise to the believer : 

He that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do 
also, and greater things than these shall he do. — John xiv. 12. 

Knowing full well that the external and physical pheno- 
mena are necessary to prove that the spirit world is an 
objective reality, he not only commended the internal 
witness, but constantly referred to and used the external 
objective witness of apparitions, voices, visions, and various 
psychic phenomena throughout his earthly career, and still 
continued to use them in manifestations to his followers 
after his crucifixion. The external witness of apparitions, 
voices, visions and various psychic phenomena was also 
constantly in evidence in the lives of the apostles and the 
members of the early Church. 

It is a great mistake to suppose that the statement 
that " the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit " 
(Romans viii. 16) indicates that all spiritual influences 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 537 

or manifestations to the believer must be brought 
about by internal, mental or emotional means, to the ex- 
clusion of those which are external and objective. Such 
was never the case in the past, nor ever will be, so long as 
the world endures. 

The statement that " we walk by faith and not by sight " 
is not borne out by the history of either the Old or New 
Testament. St Paul, the originator of it, certainly himself 
did no such thing, but the very opposite, and the whole of 
his life is an illustration of walking in the light of hard facts 
and most striking objective evidences of the things normally 
unseen and eternal. 

He himself appeals to sight when anxious to prove his 
apostleship : 

Am I not an apostle ? Am I not tree ? Have I not seen * 
Jesus Christ our Lord ? — 1 Cor. ix. 1. 

The same holds good of patriarchs, prophets and apostles. 
None of these " walked by faith and not by sight," but to a 
man their faith was founded on facts, on experiences of 
visions, voices and other objective psychic phenomena, as 
is easily verified by turning up the pages of the Old and 
New Testaments. Especially is this true of the Apostles. 
They " saw " and were intended by Christ to " see," and 
thus to believe. Faith is founded on fact. In vain do the 
Churches cry that religious faith ' ' rests not on sense and 
outward things." 

These are exactly what religious faith ultimately does 
rest on. Faith is not blind belief. Faith is founded on 
fact. The very term, " revealed religion," is otherwise a 
misnomer. There can be no revealed religion, no proved 
knowledge of a spirit world or of a future or higher life, 
without objective psychic phenomena, for these truths 
come by revelation, not by intuition, and the religious 
belief of the modern Christian Church, which thus advocates 
* Last of all he was seen of me also. — 1 Cor. xv. 8. 



538 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

" faith without sight " is itself based absolutely on the psychic 
sights, sounds, and objective experiences of a past age. 

There is the whole of another world underlying those 
words of Paul, the great apostle and psychic : 

Faith is the giving substance to of things hoped for, the 
testing of things not seen (Heb. xi. i). 

Again : 

By faith Noah, being warned of God. — Heb. xi. 7. 
By faith Abraham, when he was called." — Heb. xi. 8. 

Those who voice the absurd objection that they who em- 
phasise the objectivity and reality of the spirit world are 
materialistic in mind and not " truly spiritual," have no 
true conception of the relations between spirit and matter, 
nor do they realise that the universe is on a dual basis, and 
that matter and spirit are intimately associated, both in 
this mortal life and in that of the life of the world to come. 
Their conception of the " truly spiritual " embraces but 
half the truth, and may be likened to a bird with one wing. 

The idea that the foundation of religious life is seriously 
imperilled when the normally unseen becomes the seen is 
not borne out by the examples contained in Holy Writ, 
as set forth in the lives of patriarchs, prophets and 
apostles (335). 

Was belief in a risen Christ imperilled or made less by 
the evidences obtained in that upper room where they were 
all gathered together, the " doors being shut for fear of the 
Jews " ? 

Was belief in the spirit world imperilled by the rushing 
mighty wind, the flashing lights or the foreign languages of 
the Day of Pentecost ? 

Were candidates for the Christian Church less spiritually 
minded because " they spake with tongues and prophesied " 
after they had received the " laying on of hands " (Acts 
viii. 17; x. 44; and cj. xix. 6) ? Contrast the "Confirma- 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 539 

tion Service " of the present day, reduced by the total 
absence of the demonstrative and evidential spiritual gifts 
of apostolic times (1 Cor. xii. 10) to the level of a mere 
"initiation ceremony," or "coming of age." 

The notion that the objective evidence of the spirit world 
tends to irreverence or to imperil religious belief, or to lower 
the religious tone either of individuals or of a community, is 
not borne out by facts. 

Was Moses less reverent towards God as the result of 
his experiences ? Had he a less real, less vivid, realisation 
of God's power and presence because he saw all the wonders 
in the wilderness ? 

Were Isaiah, Ezekiel or Daniel less reverent, less filled 
with spiritual power, less appreciative of the glory and 
wonder of the living God, less filled with exaltation and 
awe, because they experienced the wonderful events they 
describe ? 

Was David, the immortal psalmist, less fitted to voice 
those religious emotions and aspirations which have 
been used in public and private worship for ages because 
he too was in touch with the realities of the spirit 
world ? 

The writings of apostles and prophets stand as evidence 
that the experience of the external witness does not de- 
stroy the internal witness, or make a man " materialistic in 
mind," and that religious life and belief are neither imperilled 
or vitiated when the normally unseen becomes the seen, 
but, on the contrary, confirmed and strengthened. 

Both the external and internal witness are needed by 
the Churches to-day, as in the days of old ; they must go 
hand in hand. The truly spiritual man will know both. 

Then why this fear on the part of the Church for what 
she professes to reverence in the past ? Are we, with our 
extended knowledge and our enlarged opportunities, less 
able to bear the light than our forefathers ? 

It is futile for the modern Churches to say, as they do, 



540 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

that the external witness of the Spirit was given nineteen 
hundred years ago, and has now ceased because it is no 
longer needed ; even as it is futile for them to profess to 
believe and receive the external witness of a past age, while 
they steadily reject it in these modern times. If the exter- 
nal witness is no longer in evidence in the Churches, it is 
because of the Churches' deliberate neglect of the same. 
The need to-day is as great as ever, in view of the world's 
advancing knowledge of the material universe. It is futile 
to contend that no modern evidence is required, even as it 
would be to assert that a demonstration once given in 
physical science must never be repeated by succeeding 
generations. Each generation as it passes upon the stage 
of life demands this evidence for itself, and will be satisfied 
in no other way. The Churches having lost the external 
witness, through long ages of neglect, take refuge in the 
statement that " these things do not happen now ; the day 
of miracles is past and revelation is closed," which state- 
ment indicates at once not only an attitude utterly illogical 
but a position completely untenable. 

The second misconception of the Churches, the persist- 
ence in which is in a large measure due to the first, is the 
totally false notion that the mortal body of a man will be 
raised again at the Last Day, and that until that event there 
is no life of active existence connected with any effective 
and real body. Of course, I am aware that the Churches 
are supposed to have some conception of the Intermediate 
State, but this is of a very hazy description, and merely 
sets forth the idea of a state of repose, in which the soul re- 
mains until it shall again be joined to the mortal body, after 
the lapse of ages, in the general Resurrection at the Last 
Day. This doctrine is constantly set forth in books, 
sermons and hymns. 

If this means anything at all it spells ages of sleep, ages 
of separation from loved ones, until the general Resurrec- 
tion in the Last Day. How long this will be the Churches 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 541 

cannot inform any inquirer, because they do not know. 
This doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh * is a funda- 
mental error, based on an imperfect understanding of the 
phenomena, excusable in early days, but no longer excus- 
able in these days of advanced knowledge. 

The apostles, seeing the empty tomb, and experiencing 
the wonderful materialisations of Christ — as in the upper 
room and on the road to Emmaus — jumped to the conclusion 
that what they saw, heard, and handled was the actual 
risen mortal body of the Christ, the resurrection of the flesh. 
That it was no such thing is positively shown and proved 
by the fact recorded that Christ appeared and disappeared 
instantaneously, the doors being shut (vide Chapter XX.). 

Such error was natural and pardonable. They had no 
previous personal experience of the touching and handling 
of a materialised spirit to guide them, while science and the 
present-day knowledge of the physical universe were prac- 
tically non-existent. True, there were the experiences of 
the Hebrew prophets, but the last of these had been dead 
for more than four hundred years. To-day this error of 
the resurrection of the flesh is no longer excusable. The 
time is quickly coming when no well-educated man will be 
able to believe in the resurrection of the flesh. The facts 
will not allow him to do so. The wonderful appearances of 
the Christ, after his crucifixion and " death," were material- 
isation phenomena pure and simple, the materialisation of 
the spiritual body of the Christ. It was the spiritual or 
spirit body of Christ that rose from the dead, and appeared 
unto the disciples. What became of his mortal body no 
one knows, and from a spiritual point of view it is a matter 

♦The quotation from Job (xix. 26) used in the Church Burial 
Service, which makes Job say : " yet in my flesh shall I see God," 
is totally erroneous, the real meaning being the exact opposite. The 
literal rendering of the Hebrew is: "Yet 'out of,' 'without,' or 
' apart from ' my flesh shall I see God " — a very different thing. 
This verse, so often quoted in support of the resurrection of the flesh, 
is thus seen to be dead against it. 



542 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

of complete indifference, equally with the question as to 
what became of Elijah's mortal body (2 King ii. 11-12). 

What became of the mortal body of Moses, who was like- 
wise seen on the Mount of Transfiguration ? Neither Moses 
nor Elijah were there seen in their mortal bodies, for both 
vanished into thin air, as Christ afterwards did in the inn 
at Emmaus. 

What is important is the fact that Elijah, Moses and 
Christ were seen after death each in a body of an entirely 
different nature €£ the mortal body, that of Christ being 
not only seen, but touched and handled. The glorious fact 
of Easter morning is not the resurrection of Christ's flesh, 
but the manifestation of his spiritual body (1 Cor. xv. 44). 

We read that God buried the mortal body of Moses (Deut. 
xxxiv. 6). Similarly God may have removed and buried 
the mortal body of Christ, through the ministry of his angels, 
even as the stone was rolled away from the tomb by an 
angel (Matt, xxviii. 2) ; or it may have been disintegrated, 
and so dispersed ; the former being most likely. 

There is not a particle of proof of the resurrection of 
Christ's mortal or physical body, all the phenomena mani- 
fested by him after his resurrection being identical in their 
nature with the materialisation phenomena witnessed by 
careful observers during the last fifty years. One thing is 
certain, that whatever became of Christ's mortal body it 
was not that body which appeared to the apostles, for the 
physical body cannot pass through closed doors, or vanish 
into thin air. In Matt, xxvii. 52-53, this statement is made : 

And the graves were opened ; and many bodies of the saints 
which slept arose. And came out of the graves after his re- 
surrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto 
many. 

Are those who insist on the resurrection of Christ's mortal 
body prepared to concede that the mortal bodies of all these 
other men rose likewise ? 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 543 

If not, why not ? Will they inform us what kind of 
body it was that arose in the case of these saints " who went 
into the holy city, and appeared unto many " ? 

To endeavour to make out, as the modern Church does, 
that Christ's mortal body was in some way different to 
ours, his death different to ours, his resurrection different 
to ours, is to deal a deadly blow at the most precious mani- 
festation of truth given to us by the Christ, and at once to 
undermine its very chiefest interest and consolation. It is 
the glory and power of Christianity that Christ was perject 
man, and that as he rose from the death of his mortal body, 
so shall we rise. Once concede that Christ's mortal body 
was different to ours, his death different to ours, his re- 
surrection different to ours — that they were special, unique, 
privileged— then immediately we cease to be like him, and his 
manifestation of resurrection at once becomes no proof 
whatsoever that we shall rise again. This is so obvious as 
to be unanswerable. 

As Christ rose soon after death, so does every child of 
man rise, because every man, in his humanity, is like unto 
the perfect man Christ Jesus. 

It would scarcely be possible to put together a series of 
statements concerning the state of the departed which 
could be further away from the truth than those set forth 
in the teaching of the Churches in the present day, as will 
be apparent to anyone who has studied the preceding 
chapters. 

The third great misconception of the modern Christian 
Church, the idea that communication between -mortals and 
the departed does not take place in these days, is the direct 
outcome of the second. A Church which holds that the de- 
parted are " asleep " has evidently no room for a practical 
belief in the Communion of Saiuts, that great doctrine and 
practice of the Early Christian Church, founded on the 
practice and experience of apostolic times, and designed 
as the constant proof to the Church from age to age of the 



544 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

reality of that spirit world and that life of the world to 
come to which the Master testified. 

The " Communion of Saints," as defined by the Church, 
includes (i) communion with the angels, (2) with the faithful 
departed, (3) with the faithful still on earth in the mortal 
body. It is evident from the above consideration that the 
Communion of Saints must consist largely of communion 
with the " dead." Communion means fellowship, mutual 
intercourse. There can be no effectual fellowship and 
mutual intercourse without communication. Psychic 
phenomena constitute the only effectual and recognisable 
means of this communion with the dead and with the spirit 
world. It is idle to deny it, and utterly vain to say that the 
Communion of Saints, as touching the spirit world and the 
departed, consists only of some mystical or emotional 
experience independent of material agency," and lying 
entirely outside psychic phenomena. How could it ever 
be proved that such emotional and mystical experiences 
were not purely subjective, and so non-evidential, if they 
were not evidenced by objective psychic phenomena in 
some form or other ? The Churches cannot produce a 
scrap of evidence in proof of a communion with the de- 
parted and with the spirit world which is "independent 
of material agency " in the sense of being independent of the 
objective. Emotion has its acknowledged place in religious 
experience as a phase of the internal witness, but the real 
communion " with those whose rest is won " must stand, 
and always has stood, upon the solid basis of evidential 
experience, as it did in the case of the communion of the 
apostles with their arisen Lord. 

While it is true that a psychical phenomenon may not 
necessarily be a spiritual one in the religious sense of that 
term, as, for instance, the levitation of an object, and while 
it is true that psychic phenomena do not in themselves con- 
stitute a religion, yet it is equally true that they have been 
intimately associated with religion in the past, and will 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 545 

still continue to be associated with religion in the future, 
from the nature of the case, for they constitute the mechan- 
ism of and the channels for all revelation and revealed 
religion, all demonstration of the spirit world and of a future 
life. The Communion of Saints can only be realised and 
demonstrated by their aid. 

The religious, to whatever branch of the Christian Church 
they may belong, who try to persuade themselves that they 
enjoy a Communion of Saints which is independent of 
material agency and outside psychical evidences, are simply 
living in an atmosphere of unreality and make-believe, and 
have never had any communion with the departed, or with 
the spirit world, that they have had any evidential means 
of recognising as such. 

It is perfectly clear that communion with the spirit 
world was sought by the prophets in Old Testament times. 
In Daniel ix. 3, 20-23; x - 2-12, we are shown the great 
prophet engaged in the very act. This communion is also 
not confined to the higher angelic beings, such as Gabriel, 
but is also enjoyed with those " in the similitude of the 
sons of men " (Dan. x. 16). 

It is equally clear that communion with the spirit world 
and with departed human souls was also practised by Christ 
himself. This tremendous fact is fully set forth in Matt, 
xvii. 1-3; Mark ix. 1-4; Luke ix. 30-32, where it is related 
that Christ deliberately went to a solitary place suitable for 
the purpose, accompanied by three apostles, and there held 
communication with Moses and Elias, long before passed 
from mortal life, and actually talked with them concerning 
his coming crucifixion at Jerusalem, thus stamping com- 
munication with the " dead " as lawful for Christian 
men. 

This communion was mutual communion between those 
on earth and those in heaven ; both parties were conscious 
of it, and held deliberate conversation together concerning 
a coming event. 
2 M 



546 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

It is also perfectly evident that this conscious mutual 
communion with departed souls was not only set forth to 
the apostles by the example of their Master, but was 
continued as a practice by the apostles and disciples after 
the " death " of the Christ. 

Christ told the apostles that they should have this com- 
munion and personal communication with him (John 
xvi. 22) : 

I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice. 

while one of the places of meeting between the Christ as a 
departed soul and the apostles was named before his death 
(Matt. xxvi. 32) : 

But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. 

and the place of meeting and the appointment were 
confirmed by an angel messenger from the spirit world 
(Matt, xxviii. 7) : 

Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the 
dead ; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee ; there 
ye shall see him. 

and immediately after it is confirmed in person by the 
" departed soul " Jesus (Matt, xxviii. 10) : 

Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid : go tell my 
brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me. 

How the apostles had conscious and mutual communion 
and communication with Jesus, who had died the death and 
departed this life, for a period of forty days is a matter of 
history. 

The great forty days of deepest interest and wonder being 
ended, that conscious and mutual communion with the 
departed soul Jesus is still maintained — 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 547 

Acts ix. 4-6 : 

And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, 
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? 

And he said, Who art thou, Lord ? And the Lord said, I 
am Jesus whom thou persecutest : it is hard for thee to kick 
against the pricks. 

And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt 
thou have me to do ? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, 
and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must 
do. 

Acts ix. 10-17 : 

And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named 
Ananias ; and to him the Lord said in a vision, Ananias. And 
he said, Behold, I am here, Lord. 

And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street 
which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for 
one called Saul, of Tarsus : for, behold, he prayeth. . . . 

Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many 
of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at 
Jerusalem. . . . 

But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way : for he is a 
chosen vessel unto me. . . . 

And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house ; and 
putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even 
Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way, as thou earnest, 
hath sent me. 

Acts xviii. 9, 10 : 

Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be 
not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace : 

For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt 
thee : for I have much people in this city. 

Acts xxii. 17-21 : 

And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, 
even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance ; 

And saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee 
quickly out of Jerusalem : for they will not receive thy testi- 
mony concerning me. 

And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in 
every synagogue them that believed on thee : 



54« MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also 
was standing by . . . and kept the raiment of them that slew him. 

And he said unto me, Depart : for I will send thee far hence 
unto the Gentiles. 

Rev. i. 10-18 : 

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me 
a great voice, as of a trumpet. . . . 

And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being 
turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks ; 

And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the 
Son of Man. 

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid 
his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not. . . . 

I am he that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am alive 
for evermore. Amen. 

It is also to be noted that St John not only has com- 
munion with the departed soul Jesus, in the island of Patmos, 
but also with other departed souls. 

Rev. xix. 10 : 

And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, 
See thou do it not : I am thy fellowservant, and of thy 
brethren that have the testimony of Jesus : worship God. 

Rev. xxii. 8, 9 : 

I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which 
shewed me these things. 

Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not : for I am thy 
fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets. 

Here John is plainly told that the angel had been in one 
case one of his brethren who had had the testimony of 
Jesus, in the other case one of his fellow-servants the pro- 
phets. Obviously these angels could neither have been one 
of John's brethren who had the testimony of Jesus nor one 
of his brethren the prophets, unless they too had, like John, 
lived the earth life. Cf. also Dan. x. 16. 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 549 

Here then is abundant evidence for mutual and con- 
scious communion between the departed soul Jesus Christ 
and his apostles and disciples, evidence for (1) the appoint- 
ing of a meeting-place ; (2) the seeking of this communion 
by Christ (Acts ix. 4, 6 ; ix. 10-17 > xviii. 9-10 ) ; (3) the 
seeking of this communion by the apostles, Paul and John 
(Acts xxii. 17-21 ; Rev. i. 10), who deliberately sought it 
by prayer and trance. 

It will therefore be seen how idle it is to say that the 
practice of Christ of communicating with the departed, 
as set forth in his communion on the Mount, was not con- 
tinued by the apostles. It was so continued. 

The fact that both apostles and other members of the 
Christian Church spake in foreign languages which were recog- 
nised (Acts ii.), when under spirit influence (a phenomenon 
often observed in modern times) also points unmistakably 
to control by departed spirits of various nationalities, and 
so to communion and communication with them. 

The doctrine of the Communion of Saints shows unmistak- 
ably that this practical communion between the Church on 
earth and that in heaven was, in early times, contemplated 
as a permanent institution in the Christian Church. Ye are 
come, as Paul says (Heb. xii. 23-24), "to the spirits of just 
men made perfect." 

With these " spirits of just men made perfect " the 
apostles and early Christians had communication, in their 
day and generation, as above shown. This was, however, 
not to be the privilege of one generation only. 

The spirits of just men made perfect are with the Church 
from age to age, death and resurrection being a continuous 
process, constantly uniting the Church Militant on earth 
with the Church Triumphant in heaven. 

As the dear Lord, in far-off days of yore, 

Met loved disciples at declining day, 
So our departed, who have gone before, 

Can meet and commune with us in the way. 



550 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Our blest Communion with the Saints in light 
Joins those who toil on earth to those in Heaven, 

While the great cloud of witnesses unite 

To light and cheer us with their succour given. 

Thus as the ages and the years roll by 

Tidings of joy to men are handed on, 
Life Everlasting, Immortality, 

Are shown us still, although our Lord is gone.* 

This practical communion with the spirit world and with 
the saints departed has been neglected for ages until at the 
present time the Churches are completely out of conscious 
touch with the spirit world and totally unable to give any 
objective proof of its existence. 

As the late Archdeacon Wilberforce truly said : 

The weakness of the Churches, as opposed to the strength of 
modern psychic investigation, is in their ignorance of the future 
life, and in their misapprehension of Scripture concerning it. 

This phase of the Communion of Saints, the actual, con- 
scious communication between mortals on the earth- plane 
of consciousness and spirits, angels and the spirits of just 
men made perfect (human angels, Luke xx. 36), must be 
restored as an actual practice in the Churches. Not until 
this is done can they ever have that sense of intimate 
knowledge of, and union with, the spirit world, which 
characterised the Churches of apostolic times. 

It is idle to cry, as some do, that revelation is closed and 
that the external witness having been given nineteen 
hundred years ago is no longer needed, as idle as it would 
be for the scientist to say that succeeding generations need 
no verification, or demonstration, of previously ascertained 
scientific truths. It is idle to cry that the modern external 
evidences of the reality of the spirit world are mere hallucina- 
tions of the senses, and that modern investigators are 

* C. L. T. — Easter 1917. 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 551 

hallucinated. If these things are hallucinations to-day, 
what proof have the Churches that the apostles, the prophets 
and all the holy men of old were not hallucinated ? They 
have not a scrap. It is a humiliating spectacle to see, both 
in Church and Press, professed Christians, in their anxiety 
to discredit modern psychic phenomena, eagerly quoting 
against them the opinions of notorious materialists, agnostics, 
and modern Sadducees. What an unholy alliance ! They 
do not appear to perceive that if the statements of these 
modern infidels, and the various anti-spiritual theories, could 
be maintained, they would sweep away the foundations of 
Christianity and revealed religion. Equally fatuous are 
those Christians who say that telepathy between the incar- 
nate is the explanation of modern spirit communications, 
for then must the same telepathy be the explanation of the 
spirit communications of the Old and New Testaments, 
and their Christianity is shattered into bits (page 264). 
Recently a certain Church dignitary made the remark 
that modern spirit communications were due to the " dream 
personality of the mind." Perhaps he will inform us 
whether the angel's communications to Joseph re the infant 
Christ (Matt. ii. 13-20), or the message of Christ to St Paul 
(Acts xxii. 18), or the message from the arisen Christ to 
Ananias (Acts ix. 10) were also the result of this " dream 
personality of the mind." The same person informs us that 
only those having " no ballast of deep-seated knowledge " 
have to do with things psychic. Exactly the same argu- 
ment applies to the early Christians. The truth is that it is 
the ignorance and practical agnosticism of many professedly 
Christian people, both in Church and Press, concerning 
the realities of the spirit world that is so appalling and so 
complete. 

In vain do the opponents of modern spirit communica- 
tion urge that it is wicked and unlawful to communicate 
with the spirit world in view of the example and precept of 
Christ, apostle, and prophet, already cited in this chapter. 



552 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

What was lawful for the Christ, the apostles, and the 
prophets, is lawful for Christian men to-day. 

Equally futile is it to say that modern psychic communica- 
tion is wrong because the psychic " allows his own intelli- 
gence to be superseded by an intelligence about which he 
knows nothing," and that he thus " abdicates his rule over 
the temple of his own being." This objection does not even 
apply, save in cases where the psychic is entranced. In 
very many cases, however, the psychic remains normal and 
in perfect possession of all his faculties, able to carry on 
conversation or read during the course of the communica- 
tions or manifestations. This is a fact well known to all 
who are familiar with the subject, and is even seen in some 
cases of materialisation (page 378). Even when the psychic 
is entranced, how does he differ in this respect from the 
prophets and apostles of the Bible ? If a modern psychic, 
who is entranced, " abdicates the rule over the temple of 
his own being," so did the prophets, as set forth in Numbers 
xxiv. 4-16 ; Ezekiel ii. 2, and iii. 24 ; Daniel x. 9 ; so did 
the apostles, as shown in Acts x. 10 and xxii. 17. In the 
last instance, St Paul was entranced when he received a 
message from the arisen Christ ! Finally, on the day of 
Pentecost, the whole band of disciples and believers were 
controlled by spirit * power, and spake in languages beyond 
the control of their own volition (Acts ii. 4-13). The 
Churches of to-day cannot condemn modern psychic in- 
vestigation without condemning the Christ, the apostles, 
the prophets, and all the holy men of old which have been 
since the world began. 

The condemnations in the law of Moses, so often quoted — 
and which in the past have been made the occasion for the 
most hideous and abominable cruelty, involving the death 

* Peter, on another memorable occasion, was in all probability- 
controlled by spirit influence, or had been previously in communica- 
tion with some spritual being, when he cried : " Thou art the 
Christ " (Matt. xvi. 17), for Jesus immediately told him that " flesh 
and blood had not revealed it unto him." 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 553 

of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings, and 
causing Church and State to write one of the blackest 
chapters of human history— amount to no more than 
warnings against pretenders, or the use of unofficial means 
of communication with the unseen. (How usual such 
communication was by official or authorised means is seen 
from 1 Samuel ix. 9 and 2 Samuel xxiv. n.) 

On the other side we can set the whole Bible, permeated 
from back to back with its voices, messages, apparitions, 
spirit agency, and spirit control. Do the Churches of the 
present day, in their opposition to the facts of modern 
psychic phenomena, wish to destroy the very foundations of 
Christianity ? Let them remember that every argument 
they bring forward against modern psychic phenomena is 
an argument against historic Christianity and revealed 
religion, founded as they are on similar happenings. 

The absurd statement is often made that communication 
with the spiritual world " results in ruin, intellectual and 
moral," and "fills our asylums." This is a statement at 
once so false and so ludicrous as to be doubly contemptible. 
Human nature has not changed, and if the results of 
intercourse with spiritual beings to-day are "madness 
and ruin moral and intellectual," then the same must 
hold good of Bible times. Were the prophets of the Bible 
mad ? Was Christ mad ? Were the apostles mad ? 
Festus cried out, when Paul was bearing witness to a wonder- 
ful psychic manifestation : " Paul, thou art beside thyself ; 
much learning doth make thee mad " (Acts xvi. 24). Do 
we believe that Paul was mad ? Was Moses mad, or ruined 
physically, intellectually, or morally ? Of him we are told 
that at the age of one hundred and twenty years his eye 
was not dim nor his natural force abated (Deuteronomy 
xxxiv. 7). He was in constant touch with the spirit 
world. So were the prophets, the apostles, and the 
Christ. 

This falsehood, this cry of " 'ware madness," was raised 



554 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

fort y years ago, and killed by statistics obtained from 
asylums as soon as raised. It was found that in the asylums 
from which the statistics were obtained there were very 
few persons suffering from madness caused by devotion to 
psychic things, but that there were many cases of religious 
mania among the orthodox patients ! * Such is the state of 
affairs to-day. Why does not someone inveigh loudly 
against Christianity because of the many cases of religious 
mania among the orthodox ? Professor Enrico Morselli, 
Director of the Clinic of Mental Diseases at the University 
of Genoa, says, on this subject : 

Cases of madness among those devoted to modern psychic 
phenomena are very rare. In my long career among thousands 
of patients I do not remember more than four or five. 

Only persons practically ignorant of, and inexperienced 
in psychic phenomena say that psychics are mad or that the 
ravings and hallucinations of the insane are the explana- 
tion of psychic visions, voices, and communications. Such 
blasphemous and contemptible statements label the Christ, 
the apostles, and the prophets as madmen, and the whole 
Bible narrative of visions, voices, and spirit communications 
as hallucinations. Those who make them are either ignorant 
of the subject or deliberately untruthful. 

Another equally absurd statement is often made to the 
effect that modern psychic manifestation and spirit com- 
munications are the work of deceiving devils. f This is the 

* According to The British Medical Jourral the insanity returns 
in the United States showed, out of 14,550 cases examined, only 
4 attributed to devotion to psychic things, a proportion of 1 in 3837. 
In England there were 136,478 cases of insanity from 1878 to 1887, 
and out of these 3769 were attributed to religious mania, a pro- 
portion of 1 in 37 ! ! 

f In 1431 the Bishop of Beauvais condemned to the cruel death 
of the stake that wonderful young psychic, Joan of Arc, on the 
ground that she was in league with the devil. With him were a 
number of Roman Catholic dignitaries who, together examined, 
threatened, and bullied her, charging her with being a sorceress, a 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 555 

argument of the Scribes and Pharisees : "He casteth out 
devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." It is aston- 
ishing what respect many professedly religious people have 
for the power of the devil. They seem to have more fear 
of the devil than confidence in the protecting and over- 
ruling power of God. They seem to think that the forces 
of evil are more potent than the forces of goodness ! This 
argument shows the practical bankruptcy of the religious 
opponents of modern psychic communion and investiga- 
tion. With the words of the Christ I will answer them 
(Luke xi. 19) : 

If I, by Beelzebub, cast out devils, by whom do your sons 
cast them out ? therefore shall they be your judges. 

If modern communications and psychic phenomena are 
the work of the devil, whose work are all those recorded in 
the Bible, or related of the Church fathers and saints ? 

Again the question is asked : What kind of security can 
one have that these spiritual agencies are the agencies they 
profess to be ? Premising that modern observers of the 
highest standing testify in the most positive terms to 

liar, a blasphemer of God and His Angels, a lover of blood, wicked, 
commissioned by Satan, etc., etc. After all kinds of lying and 
trickery, they brought this poor young girl of eighteen to the stake 
in 1 43 1, and had the heartless effrontery to taunt her as they watched 
her writhing in the flames. 

Twenty-four years afterwards, he who condemned this splendid 
heroine and wonderful psychic built a chapel at Liseaux in acknow- 
ledgment and expiation of his crime, while Pope Calixtus reversed 
her condemnation and declared her innocent ! At the present time 
the Roman Catholic Church is actually proceeding to canonise her 
as a saint, and declares that her visions and voices, like those of 
other Roman Catholic saints, were angelic and not of the devil : 

" Your voices," said Joan's ignorant judges, " are the enemies of 
mankind masquerading as saints and angels." " These messages," 
says a modern representative and dignitary of the same Church, 
" come from the principalities and powers of the world of darkness, 
and from the spirits of wickedness in hell." Hundreds of years 
separate these pronouncements in point of time, but they voice 
the same error, and show the same fallibility of judgment. 



556 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

the recognition of the materialised face and form of de- 
parted relatives and friends, and to the receipt of the 
fullest proof of their identity, and that many have secured 
recognisable spirit photographs of their departed "dead " 
— for full particulars of which see preceding chapters — we 
will ask a similar question from those who make this 
inquiry. How do they know, and what security have 
they, that all the angels who appeared to the prophets, 
the apostles, and the Christ were the agents they professed 
to be and were not agents of the devil, masquerading as 
angels of light ? How do they know that the appearances 
of the Lord Jesus after his death and resurrection, as re- 
corded in the Bible, were not the work of a deceiving devil ? 
Truly, those who use this wretched devil argument are hoist 
with their own petard. If the dead cannot identify them- 
selves to us to-day beyond all doubt, then there is no cer- 
tainty that Christ was ever identified by the apostles after 
his resurrection. Those who maintain that no evidence of 
identity, beyond the possibility of doubt, can come from 
the spirit world, would do well to remember that this foolish 
statement applies also to the identity of the arisen Christ. 
It is about the most disastrous statement that a Christian 
can make. Do those who oppose the facts of modern 
psychic phenomena wish to destroy the very foundations 
of Christianity ? Let them remember that every argument 
they bring against these phenomena and experiences is an 
argument against historic Christianity and revealed reli- 
gion, founded as they are on similar happenings. 

As for the statement that modern psychic messages in- 
variably "show no realisation of sin and its consequences 
and deny that man's time of trial is here," this is absolutely 
untrue. One could fill a volume with modern communica- 
tions conveying the very opposite. They declare that almost 
immediately after death a perfectly just judgment comes 
upon every child of man, while the serious consequences of 
sin and the certainty of punishment hereafter for wrong- 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 557 

doing are dwelt upon, and exhortations to right living often 
given (46, 70, 321, 494, 495 et al.). 

In vain do opponents try to scare men away from the 
investigation of the truth by talk of " wicked spirits of the 
air," " psychical invasion," and " deceiving devils." All 
these objections apply with equal force to primitive Christi- 
anity. Had the early Christians been as afraid of ' ' wicked 
spirits " and " deceiving devils " as the moderns, Christi- 
anity would have been strangled shortly after its inception. 

There are good spirits and bad spirits, just as there are 
good men and bad men ; but because there are bad men in 
the world we do not therefore cease to hold traffic with our 
fellows. No ; we exercise a robust common-sense in our 
dealings with them, and we find that the majority are honest 
and speak the truth. So with the spirit world. Bad 
communicating spirits are rarety in evidence. I have met 
indications of very few, and these not one-tenth part so 
bad as persons one reads of in this world. Sometimes an 
apparently bad spirit is simply one who has been grievously 
wronged in this world, and is endeavouring to express a very 
natural resentment. 

The majority of those who may be termed bad, or evil, 
spirits, are simply bad, or morally undeveloped, men or 
women, who have passed from the incarnate life of this 
world to the discarnate life of the spirit world, taking their 
evil nature with them, and are more or less earth-bound 
(Job. i. 7), wretched and unhappy. Their power to harm 
lies chiefly in the suggestion of evil, the outcome of their 
love of evil in the earth life. While this love of evil continues 
and they remain unrepentant they probably fulfil a neces- 
sary role in the development of human character by their 
unseen influence on the minds of mortals (vide page 43). 
In any case this is no worse than the evil influence of 
mortals, who likewise fulfil the same role. The remedy in 
either case is to resist the evil and choose the good, as Christ 
did when put to the same test (Matt, iv., Mark i., Luke iv.). 



558 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Because Christ met an evil spirit in the wilderness, were, 
therefore, all his other spirit visitants evil, and was he doing 
wrong in seeking any communication with the spirit world ? 

In all practical communion with the spirit world the 
guardian care of the good (Matt. iv. n), consequent on our 
trust in and prayer to God, and the following out of the 
apostolic injunction: " Try the spirits," combined with 
the exercise of common-sense, will carry us triumphantly 
through and we shall ever find the good and the true to be 
in the ascendant. 

That there is nothing to fear is not only proved by ex- 
perience, but by the fact that the apostles and early Christians 
suffered no harm. Shall we be less courageous than they ? 

The Churches are once more standing at the parting of 
the ways. A great crisis, a great opportunity, are at hand. 
Once more as in days of old they are called upon to look 
Truth in the face and pronounce judgment. Three hundred 
years ago the Churches — Roman, Lutheran, Calvinist — de- 
nounced the Copernican system as contrary to Scripture. 
Galileo was brought before the Inquisition. This grand 
old man, the greatest scientist of his day, and one of the 
greatest of all time, who had proclaimed the living truth 
to the world, was compelled under fear of the Inquisition 
to pronounce publicly on his knees the following recantation : 

I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a prisoner 
and on my knees, and before your Eminences, having before 
my eyes the Holy Gospel which I touch with my hands, abjure, 
curse and detest the error and heresy of the movement of the 
earth. 

Shall this tragedy be repeated in this our own day, and 
will the Christian Church once again shrink from the Truth ? 
Will her Bellarmines again try to stop the motion of the 
earth with a text ? Or will she, looking Truth in the face, 
take her proffered hand and march with her to fresh con- 
quests ? 



THE ATTITUDE OF RELIGION 559 

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
'Tis Error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
And dies among her worshippers. 

The Churches are face to face with a whole range of facts 
which can no longer be successfully ignored or denied, and 
which will exert a profound influence on the religion of the 
future. Let them face the facts bravely and honestly. 
They have little to lose and much to gain. There is nothing 
greater than truth. Let the truth prevail. They have and 
will retain the essentials, but will be compelled to modify 
the details, and under the pressure of advancing knowledge 
to let fall away as erroneous things they have cherished as 
true. This has happened before, and the gain has been 
great every time. Revelation is a continuous process, and 
is not confined to any one age of the world's history. 

Let the Churches take their courage in both hands, and 
claim their ancient gifts. Let them restore that long- 
neglected phase of the Communion of Saints, the practical 
communication with the angels, and the Church Triumphant. 
Let them cultivate the psychic gifts enumerated in 1 Cor. 
xii. Why should there not be, as in days of old, an " angel " 
■ — a psychic — in every Church ? (Rev. ii. 1). Their clergy 
would then not merely be able to talk about the spirit 
world, but would also have the power to demonstrate it, 
and a vista of new life and usefulness would open out 
before them. 



XXVII 

CONCLUSION 

In the Infinite Universe man may now feel, for the first time, 
at home. The worst fear is over. — F. W. H. Myers. 

Surely psychical research might well go hand in hand with the 
Church when every blow struck at materialism is a blow struck in 
the cause of religion. 

I predict that in consequence of the new evidence, all reasonable 
men, a century hence, will believe in the Resurrection of Christ. — ■ 
F. W. H. Myers. 

We stand on the threshold of a new era, by the advent of a Church 
of God nobler than any the world has ever seen, in which the large 
wide ranges of knowledge shall be brought into use. — Bishop of 
Ripon, before the British Association. 

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the 
churches. — Rev. ii. 17. 

MY task is well-nigh done. Step by step I have traced 
the evidence for Man's triumphant Survival over 
the change called " death," through the great 
schools of Religion, Human Experience, and Modern Scien- 
tific Research. It only remains, in conclusion, to again 
briefly touch on the attitude of various sections of the com- 
munity towards the psychical phenomena of our own times. 
In the first place we have those who affirm that these 
happenings are the result of fraud or self-deception. They 
who take this standpoint are altogether behind the age. 
It is too late in the day, and quite futile, to deny the reality 
of these phenomena, they are now too well attested by 
scientists in all parts of the world. They of this school 
who profess and call themselves Christians have to explain 
on what grounds of evidence they accept the accounts of 
similar things in the Gospels. Secondly, we have the bio- 
physiologists, who, while admitting the reality of the pheno- 
mena in question, endeavour to explain them by every 
possible theory save the spiritual. They are, say they, the 
result of the " dramatisation of the subliminal," " the 
exteriorisation of mot^ricity," theories which introduce 

560 



CONCLUSION 561 

greater difficulties than those they seek to remove. " Spirit 
is the last thing they will give in to." * With reference to 
these investigators it may be remarked that many, driven 
by the force of evidence to reject the theory of fraud and 
having joined the bio-physiological ranks, have in turn 
abandoned this standpoint for the spiritual, while again 
those among them who chance to be Christians are con- 
fronted with the embarrassing fact that the happenings on 
which their religious belief is founded are manifestly of the 
same nature as those they are endeavouring to explain by 
non-spiritual theories. 

Thirdly, there are those members of the Christian Church 
who, while admitting the reality of the phenomena and 
their spiritual nature, roundly declare that they are the 
work of demons and evil spirits, f With reference to this 
contention one may remark en passant that even if these 
things were the work of demons, the proving that the 
said " demons " have a definite existence is proof of the 
spiritual and thus destroys at once the whole materialistic 
position. 

Apart from the above consideration this view is utterly 
illogical, and ignores the facts of the Bible. Those who 
hold it may well be asked on what grounds of evidence 
they are able to affirm that the spiritual happenings de- 
scribed in the Bible are not also the work of devils ? To 
this question they can give no logical answer. They put 
a sword into the hands of the enemy, for if present-day 
appearances of the departed and other modern psychical 
phenomena are the work of evil demons, then alas for the 
apostles who " were glad they saw the Lord " (John xx.), 
and alas for Christian evidence, for how were they and how 
are we to know that the appearances to them were not the 
work of evil spirits likewise ? 

* Sir David Brewster. 

f " He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he 
out devils." — Mark iii. 22. 

2 N 



562 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

Against this absurd view a well-known church paper * 
recently protested in the following words : — 

It is /(least probable that the Prophets of Israel were men 
gifted with these faculties, by the right use of which the 
spiritual beings known as angels conveyed God's messages to 
mankind. Neither is there much doubt that St Paul, St Peter, 
and others were being reached through similar faculties when 
they saw visions, heard voices and spake with tongues. 

This is rational and sensible, at once in agreement with 
Holy Scripture and Modern Scientific Research.! 

Fourthly come those who regard the modern evidence 
as supplementing the old to such an extent as to form 
the basis of what is practically a new religious belief, and 
one justifying separation from the general body of the 
Christian Church. Truth cannot destroy truth previously 
ascertained, though it may supplement and extend it. 
Christ himself " came not to destroy the law but to fulfil," 

* Church Times. 

f The continuance of Psychical Phenomena is clearly indicated in 
Holy Scripture. The Apostle Peter quotes Joel ii. 28 in explana- 
tion of the rushing mighty wind, the spiritual lights, and the speak- 
ing with tongues (Acts ii. 16), while Christ in his very last words 
to the disciples, and immediately preceding the Ascension, says : 
" These signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they 
shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall 
take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not 
hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover " ; 
finally adding : " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world." 

Tertullian, one of the Early Church Fathers, says : 

" We have a right to expect prophecies and the continuance of 
spiritual gifts, and we are now permitted to enjoy the gifts of a pro- 
phetess. There is a sister among us who possesses the faculty of 
revelation. Commonly, during the religious services, she falls into 
a trance, holding then communion with angels, hearing divine 
mysteries explained, reading the hearts of some persons [compare 
1 Cor. xiv. 25. — C.L.T.], and ministering to such as require it." 

This is of great interest, as showing the prevalence of the spiritual 
gifts (1 Cor. xii.) towards the end of the second century. 



CONCLUSION 563 

and nothing is gained by a course of action which contra- 
venes this fundamental principle. The result is only to 
bring the modern evidence into discredit with very 
many to whom it might otherwise be of the highest 
service. 

Most earnestly do I exhort all such, on no account what- 
soever to separate themselves from the general body of 
the Christian Church, but to steadfastly remain within 
her communion, testifying to the reality of spiritual 
things. 

It cannot be too clearly understood that just as the 
Christian Churches in modern times have erred and suffered 
loss by ignoring the external and objective evidences of 
the spirit world in our own times, so it is possible to fall 
into the opposite error of dwelling too exclusively on the 
objective, the evidential, and the phenomenal to the detri- 
ment of the internal and the emotional, the religious and 
ethical side. In other words, while the modern Christian 
Church has erred in emphasising the spiritual, in the sense 
of the religious, ethical and emotional, and ignoring the 
spiritual in the sense of the psychical, it is equally possible 
and equally disastrous to emphasise the psychical, and 
ignore the emotional, ethical and religious. 

As of old, they must go hand in hand. While it is true 
that " knowledge must be added to faith " (2 Peter i. 5) 
it is equally true that religious faith and practice must be 
added to a practical knowledge of the spirit world. Vain 
will it be to mark the phenomena of the Communion of 
Saints shown forth on the Mount of Transfiguration if 
we fail to mark and live that Sermon on the Mount which 
is the preparation for the wonder life unveiled when 
Moses and Elias spake with the Master. Personal religion 
is vital. 

Lastly there are those who believe that 

God sends his teachers unto every age 
With revelations suited to their growth. 



564 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 

They affirm that the value of the new evidence is that it 
confirms to this generation the revelation made to our fore- 
fathers, supplementing and fulfilling the same. Broadly 
that revelation affirms that man is a spirit incarned in a 
body of flesh, that at the change we call death the spirit 
passes to another plane of conscious existence, the status 
in which is mainly determined by the line of conduct here. 
It asserts that communication between man and spiritual 
beings (angels and those departed) has taken place in 
the past, and that the spiritual world is a reality as much 
as the material. To this reality of the spiritual, modern 
evidence bears unswerving testimony, changing our doubts 
to certainty and our hypotheses to demonstration. It 
is futile to contend that no new evidence is required. 
Each generation as it passes upon the stage of this life 
demands this evidence for itself, and will be satisfied 
in no other way, and for this the All Father has ever pro- 
vided, " never leaving himself without witness " in every 
age of the world's history. Concerning the witness to our 
own times it has been said by one of the acutest minds 
engaged in psychical research : 

Had the investigation been purely negative would not 
Christian evidence, I do not say Christian emotion, but 
Christian evidence, have received an overwhelming blow ? 
As a matter of fact our research has led us to results of quite 
a different type. They have been largely positive. The 
central claim of Christianity is thus confirmed as never before. 

As the result of this investigation human survival and 
" the life of the world to come " emerges from the dim and 
uncertain regions of myth and dogma into the clear light 
of ascertained fact. Doubts are exchanged for certainty 
and hypotheses for demonstration. 

Once this God-given witness is apprehended a man " finds 
himself for the first time at home in the universe " ; the 
great fear is over. He has " plumbed the void of death 



CONCLUSION 565 

and touched the solid ground of fact, and has established a 
faith that can neither be undermined nor overthrown. He 
has done with the poetry of desolation and despair. He 
cannot be bereaved in soul." 

The heart thrills with the joy of knowledge, for now he 
knows that the soul is immortal, and that he shall stand in 
his lot at the end of the days. At last he is in touch with 
the infinite ; at last the meaning of life is clearly appre- 
hended, at last he has glimpsed the eternal verities. 

Filled with thankfulness to God for life and being, for 
the blessings of the past, for the love of those near and dear, 
for the companionship of friends, for opportunities afforded, 
for triumphs and successes permitted, for the discipline of 
trials and failures, he looks forward with quiet confidence 
to the days that shall be ; to renewed youth and strength 
and never-ending life, to glorious and increased powers, to 
blessed reunion with loved ones, who, having passed along 
the way before him, await the finishing of his earthly 
pilgrimage. Life has no place for gloom, " the eternal God 
is his refuge." Henceforth it is a going from strength to 
strength, a passing from glory to glory, an everlasting song 
of thankfulness, a triumph in his God. 

The human soul is destined to an immortal future. 
We are come " to the city of the Living God, to an in- 
numerable company of angels, to the general assembly 
and church of those who are enrolled in heaven, to God 
the Judge of all, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, 
and to the spirits of just men made perfect." 

" Wherefore, seeing that we are compassed about with so 
great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and 
the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with 
patience the race that is set before us ; — looking unto 
Jesus." 



566 MAN'S SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH 



NOTE TO CHAPTER V 

" vios tov 6eov eifii" — " I am a Son of God " (John x. 36). 

If the statement made by Christ in John x. 30 — " I and my Father 
are one "• — is taken to mean that Christ is the same being as God the 
Father, the Almighty, then it logically follows from John xvii. 21, 
23 — " Even as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they 
also may be in us," " I in them and thou in me, that they may be 
perfected into one "• — that if God and Christ are one being by 
John x. 30, then by John xvii. 21, 23, God, Christ, and the 
Apostles are also one being ; and therefore, if Christ is God, the 
Apostles are God likewise. This is impracticable. If, however, 
John x. 30 is interpreted as meaning that Christ and God are one 
in unity of purpose and spiritual aspiration, and not one in being 
and individuality, then the statement made in John xvii. 21, 23 
at once becomes intelligible and practicable. Seeing that there 
is a spark of the divine nature in every man, and that all are 
children of the Creator, every man might claim, in the abstract, to 
share the being and eternal nature of the Deity. 

Whether Christ refers to this fact or not in John viii. 58, it is 
certain that when he speaks from the Spirit world — arisen, glorified 
and exalted — -he makes it perfectly plain that he is a concrete in- 
dividuality separate and distinct from God the Father (John xx. 
17; Rev. iii. 5, 12; ii. 27). 

That God and Christ are separate and distinct beings is manifest 
from the following considerations : — 

1. From the nature of the case a father and a son cannot be the 
same concrete individual. 

2. Gabriel the Archangel designates Christ as " a Son of the 
Highest " (Luke i. 32). 

3. Christ calls himself " a Son of God " (John x. 36). 

4. Christ always prays to God as to a being superior to, other 
than, and external to, himself, calling him " Father," and " God." 

5. When Christ cries : " Father, glorify thy name ! " a voice 
external to himself answers : " I have both glorified it and will glorify 
it again " (John xii. 28) : while at his baptism, and also at the 
Transfiguration, voices external to Christ are heard saying : " This is 
my beloved Son " (Mark i. 11 : Luke ix. 35). 

6. When dying on the cross Christ cried to God : " My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " (Matt, xxvii. 46). 

7. When Christ has entered the Spirit world, and is speaking as 
an arisen spirit, he still maintains the distinction in individuality 
between himself and God. " Go unto my brethren and say unto 
them, I ascend unto my Father and to your Father and to my God 
and to your God" (John xx. 17); while in Rev. iii. 5, 12, he 
makes the most emphatic and careful distinction between God the 



NOTE TO CHAPTER V 567 

Father and himself as between separate beings and individual- 
ities. 

"He that overcometh ... I will confess his name before my 
Father and before his angels." 

" He that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my 
God, and I will write on him the name of my God." 

The Apostle John does likewise in Rev. i. 1, 4, 5, 6. 

It is absolutely impossible on these scriptures to come to any other 
conclusion than that God and Christ are separate and distinct 
beings. 

The scheme of spiritual being and manifestation shown us in the 
Old and New Testament is : 

1 . God, the Spirit of God, the Great Spirit, the Lord God, the 
Father, the Creator, the Almighty. 

2. Christ — perfect man — -directed and inspired by God through 
the ministry of angels and archangels, in a mission for the teaching, 
development, and upliftment of mankind, and for the demonstra- 
tion of human survival and the future life. At " death " he passed 
into the Spirit world, and after demonstrating human survival to 
men, was highly exalted and glorified (Phil. ii. 9), passing to the 
higher spheres, attaining an appearance similar to that of the 
archangels {cf. Dan. x. 5, 6 ; Rev. i. 13-16), (56), and standing in 
the counsels of the Most High, with especial reference to mankind 
(Acts v. 30, 31 ; Heb. vii. 25 ; Rev. ii. 23, 27 ; iii. 5, 12). 

The " Holy Ghost " is not God the Great Spirit in propria persona, 
but is a term used to designate the varied manifestations of the 
influence and power of God, transmitted through intermediary spirit 
personalities — Christ, archangels, angels, and the spirits of the 
departed (186). 

3. The archangels. 

4. The angels. 

5. Human angels : the arisen spirits of the departed. 



INDEX 



Acorn incident, the, 162-170 
Accompanying spirits supply in- 
formation, 297 
Achilles and Patroclus, 180 
Adare, Lord, and fire test, 457 
Adare, Lord, witnesses levita- 

tion, 455 
Aeroplane race forecast, 258 
Affidavits, 387, 400, 438 
Agapae, 487 
Agazotti and Herlitzka, Drs, 

testimony of, 522, 526 
Agnosticism in Church and 

Press, 551 
Aksakof, the Hon. Alexander, 

109, 460 
Aldershot case, the, 138 
All the manifestations of Bible 

times not recorded, 483 
Ammonia incident, 300 
Angel of the Church, 559 
Angels, human, 26,61, 63,187,548 
Angels, ministry of, taught by 

Christ, 63 
Animals see apparitions, 108, 

128, 135 
Animals, survival of, 157, 161, 

320, 322, 324 
Annihilation, 184, 514 
Anti -spiritual theories strike at 

Christianity, 264, 551 
Annunciation, the, 42 
Apparitions displace, and lift, 

things, 115, 270, 272, 496 
Apports, 465, 485 
Apocrypha, the, 225 
Apostles, the, chosen for their 

psychic gifts, 335 
Apostles and prophets fortun- 
ately not ashamed of psychic 

things, 410 

569 



Apparitions harmless and often 
beneficent, 226 

Apparitions rarely frighten, 180 

Apparitions of several figures at 
once, 100 

Arago's experiences, 506 

Arm, partial materialisation of 
an, 381 

Aratus, Phainomena, 16 

Articles through walls and ceil- 
ings, 462 

Archdeacon Colley, 465 

" Are you really satisfied ? " 378 

Ascending out of the floor, 357, 

483 
Ascending in the air, 53, 115, 

279. 364 
Ascension, the, 53 
Ascension, the, the nature of the 

cloud, 365 
As well might one say that 

apostles impersonated Christ, 

339 
" As the angels of God in 

heaven," 63, 504 
Atonement by substitution, 45 
At-one-ment by co-operation, 47 
Atmoplasma, 385, 430 
Austin, Dr B. F., 407 
Australian incident, 255 
Automatic writing, 365, 482 
Auric light drawn from hand, 

408, 412 
Augustine, St, 490 
Augustine's case of excursion, 87 

B 

Baggally, W. W., 231, 234, 259, 

269 
Baggally, Mr W. W., and direct 

voice, 327 
Balfour, the Hon. Gerald, 483 



57° 



INDEX 



Barrett, Sir W., and psychic 

photo, 391 
Barrett, Sir William, testimony 

to direct voice, 332 
Barrett, Sir W., and levitation, 

448 
Barrett, Sir W., on strength of 

the evidence, 529 
Barbarous laws, 354, 552 
Barter, General, case related by, 

123 
Bangs Sisters, the, 432 
Bath and red lamp, the, 229 
Bates, Miss Katharine, 358 
Benny, 367 
Beaten by the facts, scientists, 

523. 527 
Bell accompanied by star-like 

light, 461 
Bell floats in air, ringing, 461 
Bellarmine, 558 
Bells set ringing, 150, 215 
Berand, Mademoiselle Marthe, 

370 
Beresford, Lord and Lady 

Tyrone, 495 
Berry, the Misses, 348 
Bible, the, largely -a record of 

psychic phenomena, 471 
Bible permeated from back to 

back, 553 
Biblical and modern cases iden- 
tical, 489 
Birbeck case, the, 80 
Birth and death of worlds, 22 
Birth of agents predetermined, 42 
Blackest pages of history, 553 
Boat flies to pieces, 260 
Bolton, Gambier, 374, 526 
Body and soul, 74 
Bone and Cyril, 319, 323 
Bonnot incident, 256 
Boursnell, Mr R., 295, 408 
Box floats in the air, 325 
Bousted, Dr Rowland, case 

related by, 99 
Brazen serpent, 488 
Brewster, Sir David, 561 
Brooch incident, 289 
Brooke, Sir James 246 
Brooks, case of Mr Christopher, 

228, 493 



Brougham, case of Lord, 171 
Brutus and Caesar, 490 
Browning, Robert, and his sister, 

254 
Browning, Mrs, 254 
Burial Service, 33 
Burial Service, error in, 541 
Burnet, Frank, passing of, 298 
Burnett, John, passing of, 238 
Burnett, " Grannie," 330 
Burning bush, 26, 274 
Burning of church, 304 
Bush, Mr Richard A., 296, 408 
Burns, Robert, 70 
Buckingham, Duke of, and Mr 

Towers, 491 
Butler, Bishop, 533 

C 
Cassini, 17 

Carrington, Fielding, and Bag- 
gaily, Messrs, 454 
Cage test, 366, 519 
Caius, Dr, 214 

Cameras, several used simul- 
taneously, 385 
Campbell, General, case of, 195, 

210 
Campbell, Lady Archibald, 344 
Captivities, Jewish, the, 486 
Carrington, General, 375 
Carried in the air, 455 
Carpenter, Dr, and " uncon 

scious cerebration," 514 
Catleugh's case, Mr, 227 
Chains, Peter's, fall off, 460 
Challenge, J. J. Hartman's, 394 
" Changed into another man " 

(1 Sam. x. 6.), 488 
Changed life no evidence, per se, 

of spirit world, 535 
Charles I. and Stratford, 491 
Chedworth, Lord, apparition seen 

by, 495 
Christ's mission unique in im- 
portance, 43 
Christ's clairvoyance, 220, 489 
Christ's death voluntary, 44 
Christ'swords on the Cross, 29, 567 
Christ's return. What good did 
it dc ? 139 



INDEX 



57i 



Christ's after-death appearances 
were materialisations, 386 

Christ a departed soul, 546 

Christ appears in places widely 
apart, 194 

Christ explains his Sonship, 42 

Christ liable to imprisonment 
to-day, 354 

Christ, prophets and apostles 
seek spirit communion, 545 

Christ touched and handled 
when arisen, 52 

Christ's body not different to 
ours, 543 

Christ's mortal body did not 
appear to apostles, 542 

Christian central claim con- 
firmed, 564 

Christian opposition, utter 
fatuity of, 264, 551 

Christianity, anti-spiritual 

theories strike at, 90, 304, 551 

Christianity at first received with 
ridicule and contempt, 509 

Christmas-tree, apparition walks 
through, 153 

Cristoforo, Princess di, case re- 
lated by, 19T 

Church estranged, the, 535 

Churches at the parting of the 
ways, 558 

Churches' failure to realise 
modern psychic phenomena,22o 

Churches unable to give present- 
day proof, 536 

Churches', the, opposition illo- 
gical, 264 

Churches, the. Do they wish to 
destroy the foundations of 
belief? 553 

Church dignitary, experience of 
a, 471 

Church Times, 562 

Cicero and survival, 73 

Clarke, the Rev. W., and the 
black hand, 225 

Clergy and ministers, vast 
majority have no practical 
knowledge of spirit world, 217 

Clairaudience, preparation for, 285 

Clairvoyance and clairaudience, 
284, 489 



Clairvoyance experimentally and 

objectively proved, 286, 390 
Clairvoyance in the Bible, 489 
Clairvoyance, evidential value 

of, 286 
Clairvoyance descriptive table 

of results, 290 
Clarke, Dr Adam, 503 
Cleary, Able Seaman, 250 
Clock falls from height, 468 
Clothes, " the ghosts of," 360 
Clothes of the arisen Christ, 360 
Cloud, egg carried on a, 466 
Clouds of light, 275, 279, 364 
Clouds, Christ did not ascend 

into the, 365 
Clouds condensing to hands, 380 
Cold intense, 153, 516, 524 
Colour-blindness, 210 
Communion of Saints a prac- 
tical permanent institution, 549 
Communion of Saints practice 

must be restored, 550, 559 
Communion, Holy, or Agapae, 

487 
Communications by percussive 

sounds, 472 
Compact, appearances in fulfil- 
ment of a, 171 
Comet, dream discovery of, 263 
Compass, the, 139 
Communication, means of, are 

necessary, 335 
Confirmation in the modern 

church, 539 
Conley case, the, 188 
Consequences of sin, 47, 70 
Consolatory apparitions, 1 70, 226, 

281, 303 
Consolation afforded, unobtain- 
able in any other way, 303, 319 
Contemptuous disbelief in God 
and the spirit world has much 
to fear, 71 
Contempt prior to investigation 

fatal to progress, 533 
Conversation carried on by 

spiritual beings, 96, 106, 155 
Conjurers testify to reality of the 

phenomena, 373, 421, 436 
Conjurers. Why don't they 
imitate Bible pnenomena ? 436 



572 



INDEX 



Concentration of thought deters 

phenomena, 359 
Cook, the Rev. Charles Hall, 

403. 432 
Cook, Florence, 337, 379 
Coates, Charles, 162 
Coates, Leah, 146 
Coates, Leah, return of, 153 
Coates, Elizabeth, 147 
Coates, Elizabeth, return of, 488 
Coates, Professor James, 393, 415 
" Coincidence " and " happy 

hit " theories, 264 
Cold wind, 208, 277 
Coleman, Mr, witnesses levita- 

tion, 451 
Colley, Archdeacon, 432, 465 
Colt, Captain Russell, case of, 

172 
Communion of Saints, the, 147, 

170. 543. 549 

Complexion correctly rendered, 
442 

Conditions accompanying in- 
vestigator, 297 

Conjurers' attempts to imitate 
psychic phenomena, 436 

Ccpernican system, the Church 
and the, 558 

Conversion of itself no evidence 
of spirit world, 535 

Conviction absolute, cf survival, 

219. 527. 530 
Crawford, Earl of, 190 
Crawford, Lord, and the fire 

test, 457 
Crawford, Lord, witnesses levi- 

tation, 445 
Crawford, Dr, 350 
Cremona, 295 
Criticism, ignorant and unfair, 

220, 222 

Crookes, Sir William, 336, 513 
Crookes, Sir William, and Katie 

King, 516 
Crookes, Sir W., and levitation, 

446 
Crookes, Sir W., and fire test, 456 
Crcokes, Sir William, recent pro- 
nouncement of, 517 
Crcokes, Lady, psychic photo- 
graph of, 420 



Crystal, scenes visible in, 476 
Cumulative, the evidence, 93, 

241, 263, 286, 354, 521 
Cui bono P (What is the good of 

it?), 139,455 
Cyrus, edict of, 487 

D 
Damiani, Signor, 519 
Dawn and evening, appearances 

of Christ at, 1 16 
Daylight, apparitions in, 99, 101, 

"3. i57» 159 
Daylight, levitation at Weston 

in.. 453 
Daylight, voices in, 151, 156, 307 
"Dead or alive," 181 
Degrees of visibility and per- 
ception, 210 
Deliberate cruelty and injustice 

have much to fear, 71 
Descent into hell, 40 
Dematerialising, 356, 357, 364, 

368, 369 
Dematerialisation, Christ's, 53, 

364 
Dee, Dr John, Warden of Man- 
chester, 475 
De Senectute, 73 
Devils, attributing all to, 554, 

561 
Devils, did they deceive the 

apostles ? 556 
"Dead," apparitions of the, 478 
Dialectical Society, the, 509 
Direct voice, 150, 306, 479 
Discipline, punishment, 44, 70 ', 
Direct writing, 482 
Distinguished investigators, 374 
Dives and Lazarus, 31 
Dog, Leah's, 157 
D'Onston case, the, 200 
Donaldson case, the (accident 

to face), 245 
" Do such things happen now ? " 

226 
Door opened b}^ apparition, 108, 

155, 208 
Door, locked, bursts open, 463 
Doors opened, 270 
Double materialisation, 385 



INDEX 



573 



Douglas, Rev. H., 452 

Donne, Dr. 494 

Doyle, Sir Arthur Ccnan, 262, 

375 
Dramatic revelation, demand 

for, 139 
Dreams, 226, 258, 551 
Drapery, dematerialisation of, 

35i 

Drowning, escapes from, 299 
Duality of man's nature, 73 
Duguid, David, 396 
Dun Echt, observatory of, 509 
" Dust to dust," 76 



Everitt, Mr and Mrs, 473 
Excursions of the Spiritual 

Body, 81 
Example and precept, 545-549 
Extinguishers take fire, 421, 508, 

518-519, 526, 528 
Expectancy theory rebutted, 

180, 202, 219 
Extenuating circumstances, 47 
External objective witness, 535 
Eyes open in picture, 439 
Eyes, spirit, often luminous, 283, 

5io 



Earth-bound spirits, 224 

"Ear of Dionysius," 483 

"Earth's crammed with 

heaven," 532 

Ear, vibration in, 285 

Easy to cry fraud, 449 

Earth linked with heaven, 550 

Eating and munching of food by 
spirits, 367 

Edna, Aunt, 292 

Edmunds, the Hon. J. W., 508 

Effort required, for apparition 
to speak, 198, 199, 384 

Electrically fitted room, sug- 
gested, 352 

Electrical conditions in Sinai and 
the U.S.A., 352 

Elcho, Lord, and levitations, 444 

Elgee case, the, 83 

Elisha raises child, 489 

Elisha, 284 

Emerson, 284 

Epworth Rectory, manifesta- 
tions at, 497 

Erskine, Lord Chancellor, case 
related by, 192 

Eternal life, 69 

Etherialisation, 334 

Eusapia Paladino, 373, 391, 454 

Evidence equal to any, sacred or 
profane, 454 

Evil necessary as an alternative 
choice, and foil to goodness, 

43. 557 
Evil spirits, 557 



Face seen on article belonging to 

deceased person, 145 
Faith not blind belief, 537 
Faith, Noah's and Abraham's, 

founded on facts, 538 
Faith, religious, founded on fact, 

537 

Faith, Paul's definition of, 538 

" Fall," the, intended and neces- 
sary, 43 

Family doctor, the, 411 

Feeding the multitude, Christ, 

47°> 4 8 5 
Figures form from a white spot 

or ball, 278, 367-371, 383 
Fire test, 456, 480, 511 
Fire, materialisation out of, 459 
Fire, proofing against, 456 
First start in spirit life often 

obtained from earth, 111 
First materialisations, 351, 361 
Flammarion, Monsieur Camille, 

and levitation, 454 
Flammarion, Camille, testifies to 

reality of phenomena, 530 
Flame, spirits manifest in a, 483 
Flesh, no resurrection of the, 386 
" Flesh and blood hath not re- 
vealed it," 552 
Flesh and bones, 336 
Fleet, Mr, his account of Geary, 

250 
Floor, spirits descend through, 

143, 348, 357- 379 
Floor, spirits rise through, 355, 

356, 357. 483 



574 



INDEX 



Flora Loudon photograph, the, 

405. 43i 
Florence, the story of, 341 
Flowers, appropriate offerings, 

349 
Flowers, fondness of spirits for, 

349. 407. 465 
Foa, Prof., 522 

Forecast five years ahead, 254 
Forecasting events, 218, 226, 519 
Forgiveness, materialised spirit 

begs, 374 
Food, materialised spirits eat, 

54. 367 
Footsteps, spirit, 119-205, 216 
Fox Sisters, the, 449, 507, 508, 510 
Franklin, Benjamin, and sur- 
vival, 527 
Fraud, special training, or pre- 
cautions, to detect, not de- 
manded of Bible witnesses, 517 
Full face and profile, 270 
Furniture moved, 218, 232, 451, 

465 
Further opportunity, 71 



Galileo, 16, 546 

Gabriel, the Archangel, 42, 56 

Galvani, 387 

Galvanometer experiment, 518 

Galloway, Mr, psychic photo of 

daughter, 422 
Gasping, apparition when spoken 

to, 198-199 
Gasparin, Comte de, 531 
Gate opens " of its own accord," 

462 
Gentleness in moving objects, 

451, 468 
Ghose, Babu Sheshir Kumar, 

psychic picture, 442 
Girl, test case apparition, 331 
Girdlestone, Rev. E. D., 410 
Gladstone, W. E., 533 
Glimpses of the Next State, 308, 

355. 433 

Glastonbury, discovery of the 
Edgar Chapel, 483 

Glenconner, Lady, psychic photo- 
graph of son, 422 



Glendinning, Mr Andrew, 432 
God is spirit (irvev/xa 6 deos), 185 
God and the Spirit of God one 

and the same person, 185-186 
God and Christ distinct beings, 

566 
God unseen at any time, 185 
Goethe and levitation, 444 
Golligher, Kathleen, 350, 386, 

448, 471 
Gong sounded, 160 
Gordon, General, 374-375 
Grant, Mrs Charlotte, psychic 

photograph, 412 
Gregory, Professor, 78 
Groombridge, 1830, 18 
" Greater things shall ye do," 

536 
Growth in spirit world, 347-349 
Guardian angels, work of, 218, 

459 
Gully, Dr, 338, 449 
Guppy, Mrs, 465 

H 

Hallucinations are subjective, 

305 

Hall, S. C, and fire test, 458 

Hall, Mr C. S., 369 

Halley, 17 

Hammock, cage and galvanom- 
eter tests, 518-519 

Hamilton, Duchess of, vision, 
228 

Hamilton, Deputy Inspector- 
General, experience of, 322 

Hands, appearances of, 481, 524 

Hands melting in grasp, 381, 516, 

524 
Hands, the laying on of, 538 
Hannah, passing of Aunt, 232 
Harrison, Mr William, 339, 347 
Harris, Mrs, 314 
Hasty judgment to be avoided, 

146 
Harmony, 314 
Haweis, Rev. H. R., 475 
Happy after mortal suffering, 488 
Hare, Professor, 508 
Healing, psychic, 187, 488, 519 
Heaven, popular ideas of, 59 



INDEX 



575 



Henry IV. at Fontainebleau, 491 

Herschel, Sir William, 18, 21 

Herschel's great four-foot mirror, 
21 

Historical evidence, 490 

Hodgson, Dr, testimony to sur- 
vival, 530 

Hodgson, Joshua, passing of, 239 

Holmes, Mrs, 342 

Home, D. D., fire test, 457 

Home, D. D., apparition of his 
wife, 270, 510 

Home, D. D., levitations of, 445 

Honest and patient investiga- 
tion essential, 305, 421 

Honest and fair investigation 
brings conviction, 529 

Honeywood, Mrs, 471 

Hoole, Rev. Mr, Vicar of Haxey, 

499 

Hooper, Dr, 418, 432 

Hope, Mr William, 418 

Hopps, Rev. John Page, 514 

Horace Greeley, 507 

Hornby, Sir Edmund, case re- 
lated by, 105 

Horseshoe incident, 469 

Houdin, Robert, opinion of, 436 

Hoyle, Dr, death of, 329 

Human nature not changed, 504 

Human testimony has proved 
survival, 531 

Hunter's Palace case, 178 

Hunt, Mrs G. B., psychic picture, 

439 

Husbands, John E., case related 
by, 119 

Husk, Cecil, 375 

Huxley, 513 

Huxley, his dread of annihila- 
tion, 514 

Hydesville, 506 

Hypnotism, 78 

Hyslop, Prof., 531 



Ice apport, 465 

Identification, wounds, mutila- 
tions and imperfections as- 
sumed for, 115, 122, 346, 484, 



Identity of the arisen Christ, 556 

Ignatius, 72 

Ignatius, The Acts of, 490 

Immortality, 71 

Independence, the phenomena 
often show, 521 

Indian levitations, 444 

Information previously un- 
known, apparition conveys, 

121, I25 

Insanity, the false cry of, 304, 

553 
Inspiration not confined to 

religious matters, 65, 139 
Intelligence directs movement of 

objects, 272, 447, 449, 452, 

453 

Internal witness, the, 535 
Intelligence behind the pheno- 
mena, 272, 467, 470 
Investigation, methods of, 287, 

305 

Invisible, things normally, photo- 
graphed, 430 

Iola, photograph of, 411 

"I want you," 149-154 



Jar comes into closed room, 467 
James, Professor, of Harvard 

University, 530 
Jacolliot, Louis, Indian experi- 
ences of, 444 
" Jesus, the Spirit of," 184 
Jeffrey, Mr William, testimony 

of, 312, 421 
Jencken, H. D., barrister-at-law, 

449. 45i 

Jerusalem, fall of, 487 

Johnson, Col. E. R., report of, 
320 

Johnson, J. B., of Toledo, 355 

Jones, Mr Walter, psychic photo- 
graph, 417 

Josephus, 475 

Jonquils, showers of, 465 

Jonson, Ben, and son's appari- 
tion, 492 

Jupp, Mr, orphanage case, 275 

Judgment, the, 39, 46, 70, 321 



576 



INDEX 



Judgment and resurrection 
follow soon after " death," 39, 
46, 70, 321 

Judgment, when is the Day of ? 
39. 321 

Judgment absolutely just, 46 

Jupiter, satellites of, 410 

K 

Kellar, opinion of, 436 
Kepler, 16 

Kidd, Mr Robert, case of ex- 
cursion, 87 
King, Katie, 337"34°. 3 6 9 
Kitty, 356 
Kostka, St Stanislaus, 102 



Languages, several, spoken, 320 
Lamp, spirit, 280, 364 
Laplace, 387 
Latency theory, futility of, 130, 

246 
Leah, 146 
Leah's dog, 157-161 
Lee, Sir Charles, daughter cf , 492 
Lee, Rev. F. G., 473 
Lethe, 180 
Levitations, Bible instances, 454, 

478 
Levitations of the body, 444, 478 
Levi Mock, Judge, 437 
Lewis, Rev. Gerard, case related 

by, 113 
Life on other side natural and 

rational, 221 
Life, this mortal, importance of, 

7i 
Life taken up just where laid 

down, 221 
Light retarding effect on some 

manifestations, 116 
Lingering around earthly scenes, 

194 
Lincoln, President, psychic 

photograph of, 392 
Lincoln, President, witnesses 

levitation, 450 
Lincoln, President, dream of, 492 
Lindsay, Lord, 509 



Littleton, Lord, apparition of, 495 

Lips of apparition seen to move, 
285 

Literary men and scholars, sur- 
vival of, 225, 483 

Lord and Giver of Life, the, 70, 
186 

Locked door bursts open, 463 

Lodge, Sir Oliver, testimony to 
survival, 531 

Lombroso, Professor, 520, 528 

Longfellow, 342 

Lost objects, finding, 190, 480 

Lowell, 533 

Luminous appearances, 274, 483 

Luminous clouds, spirit figures 
form from, and dissolve into, 
55, 274, 279, 365 

Luminous spot or ball, formation 
from, 278, 369, 372, 383 

Luminosity sign of spirit pre- 
sence, 241, 275, 483, 492 

Luminous phenomena at Weston 
Vicarage, 274, 279, 383 

Lvtton, Lord, appearance of, at 
Weston, 140 

M 

Man makes his own heaven or 

hell, 46, 71 
M'Gillivray, Miss, case of, 276 
M'Kee, picture of Alexander P., 

438 
Mackellar, Mr A., psychic photo- 
graph, 411 
Mad, were prophets, Christ and 

apostles ? 304, 543 
Magee, Archbishop, 45 
Mary Magdalene and Christ's 

first appearance, 351 
Mary Magdalene, 30, 52 
Make-believe, religious, 545 
Man, Christ perfect, 57, 75 
Many mansions, 59 
Marriage foreseen and brought 

about, 135, 242 
Marriage and birth of children 

brought about from the Spirit 

World, 42, 63, 135 
Marconi, 116, 375 
Marryat, Captain, 210 



INDEX 



577 



Marryat, Florence, 210, 341, 375 
Matter through matter, 460, 461, 

463, 468 
Materialised spirits touched and 

handled, 351 
Materialisation, psychics who are 

not entranced, 378 
Materialisation, what is ? 333 
Materialisations in the Bible, 484 
Materialisation, degrees of, 361 
Materialisation lasts two hours, 

337 
Materialisation, Christ's first, 52 
Materialisation of a little child, 

383 
Materialisations in the Bible, 484 
Material and spiritual, 505 
Materialistic, objection that 

spiritual evidence is, 528 
Maxim, Sir Hiram, 175 
Maxwell, Dr Joseph, 520 
Maybank, Mr, experience of, 323 
Mental requests answered, 167, 

190, 272, 325,438, 511 
Menneer case, the (Sarawak), 246 
Medici, Catherine de, 491 
Metaphysical Phenomena, 520 
Methods of obtaining a portrait 

or likeness, 430 
Michael, the Archangel, 67 
Microscopical examination of 

pachyplasma, 3 85 
Millennial Coming, the, 37, 55 
Ministering spirits, 63 
Miracles and Modern Psychic 

Phenomena, 406 
Miyatovich, Count Chedo, 310 
Modern and Biblical psychic 

phenomena, 474 
Morley, John, Recollections, 514 
Morsel] i, Professor, 523 
Morton case, the, 196 
Moore, Vice-Admiral Usborne, 

308, 314, 354, 357, 375, 434, 

527 
Moses physically vigorous when 

a hundred and twenty, 553 
Moses, Rev. Stainton levitated, 

447 
Moses and Elijah's mortal bodies, 

542 
Mouth filled with test liquid, 313 

2 o 



Musical vibrations help produc- 
tion of phenomena, 308 

Musical instruments sounded, 
524 

Mutual spirit communion, 546 

Music and musical instruments, 
sounds of, 485 

Myers, W. F., 518, 560, 564 

Mystery of the universe inex- 
haustible, 532 

Myth and dogma, 564 



N 

Naaman cleansed, 480 

Natural, phenomena of spirit 

world are, 477, 505 
Natural laws of the spiritual 

world, 335 
Nebulae, 22 

Negation of human progress, 58 
Never photographed in mortal 

life, 412, 422 
Nothing, one cannot have less 

than, 536 
"Notes of an Inquiry into the 

Phenomena called Spiritual," 

515 
" No tube in my mouth now,' 
320 

Not yet in hea,ven, 344 

O 

Objections apply equally to 
Christianity, 543, 546 

Objection that a psychic " ab- 
dicates rule of his mind," 552 

Objectors must be consistent, 

456 
Objectivity of apparitions, 108, 

265 
Objective psychic phenomena, 

necessity for, and value of, 58, 

90, 220, 536 
Objective phenomena, no proof 

of spirit world apart from, 536 
Objects carried and displaced, 

270 
Objects move in daylight, 465 
Oil, the cruse of, 470 



578 



INDEX 



Omar Khayyam, 534 

On the Threshold of the Unseen, 
448 

" One world at a time " objec- 
tion, 58 

Overwhelming evidence, 429, 531 

Owen, Robert Dale, 469 



Pachyplasma, 385, 430 

Paley, 533 

Palladia case, the, 131 

Patmos, Christ and St John in, 

45. 68, 538, 566 
Paradise, 64 
Pastor of Hermes, 70 
Papias, 70 

Paul on the resurrection, 33 
"Paul, thou art beside thyself," 

553 

Pendulum in glass case moved 

psychically, 516 
Pentecostal lights, 461, 510, 515, 

524 

Pentecostal manifestations, evi- 
dence of control by spirits of 
different nationalities, 186 

Perception of spirits, difference 
in power to see, 142, 274 

People becoming more enlight- 
ened as to psychic things, 193 

Peace, Perfect Peace, 233 

Perceval, Spencer, assassination 
of, 248 

Peirce, Mr William J., 432 

Pereliguine, case of Anastasie, 109 

Persecution of psychics, 353 

Personal religion is vital, 563 

Personal appearance of exalted 
spiritual beings, 56 

Peter's release from prison, 462 

Peter, St, 482, 552 

Pharisees, 26 

Photographers, professional, tes- 
timony of, 392, 399 

Photographers, psychic, 393, 418 

Photographing the Invisible, 393, 

413 

Photographic Test Committee, 

401 
Photo test case, 424 



Physical vigour and longevity of 
prophets and apostles, 553 

Physical psychic manifestations 
caused by spirits, 450 

Piave, River, 262 

Picture incident, 298 

Picture, psychic, produced in 
public, 439 

Pillar of fire and cloud, 274 

Piper, Mrs, 530 

Plato, 73 

Plates marked, 425 

Poole, apparition of Major, 96 

Practical utility of communica- 
tions, 218, 299, 319 

Prayer, how God answers, 63 

Prayers for the dead, 108 

Prayer, requests for prayer by 
the "dead," 109, in 

Precautions in modern and Bible 
times, 517 

Press reviews, 512 

Proofing against fire, 456, 480 

Proof of survival is of the utmost 
utility, 221 

Prophecy, 230, 264, 303, 485 

Prophets and spirits, 222 

Psychic and spirit seen together, 
337^ 338, 346. 372. 380 

Psychics, materialisation, 366 

Psychic photo, Weston, 387 

Psychical Research Society, 390 

Psychical and religiously spiritual 
must go together, 563 

Psychographs, 431 

Ptolemy, 16 

Punishment, 70 

Pythagoras, 16 

Q 

Quarterly Journal of Science, 513 

R 

Rapping signals, 153, 294, 453, 

472, 498 
Rambouillet, Marquis de, 494 
Radiometer, 513 
Rayleigh, Lord, experiences of, 

508, 530 
Raynham Hall, 210 



INDEX 



579 



Raymond, 531 

Reality of the future life, 68 

Reality of Psychic Phenomena, 350 

Realms, 68 

Recognised spirit photographs, 
392, 404, 407, 408, 412, 418, 
424, 427, 428, etc. 

Recognition of spirit faces, 81 , 
276, 323, 353. 356, 359. 522 

Recognition of spirit voices, 312, 
323, 324, 329 

Recognition, spirit plans to 
secure, 123, 139, 142, 294, 344 

Reformation, the, 474 

Reid, MrH. A., 432 

Reincarnation, 184, 321 

Religion, personal, of vital im- 
portance, 563 

Religion, attitude of, 533 

Religious mania, 554 

Reluctance to testify to psychic 
experiences, 409 

Repentance, amendment and re- 
paration, 46, 71 

Responsibility for sin, 46 

" Rest, perfect rest," 384 

Resurrection a continuous pro- 
cess, 31, 549 

Resurrection of flesh, false doc- 
trine of, 540 

Resurrection, ours immediate, 
like Christ's, 543 

Revelation not closed, 540, 564 

Revelation, psychic phenomena 
the only channels of, 58, 220, 
222, 536, 545 

Revealed religion, 537 

Richet, Professor, 370, 395, 528 

Richter, 17 

Ring incident, 296 

Robinson, Mr W. H., 295 

Room electrified and dry, 352 

Roses brought by spirits, 349, 469 

Rosse, Lord, his six-foot mirror, 
21 

Rule, Margaret, levitation of, 444 



Sadducees, Christ's refutation 

of, 26 
Sagee, Mademoiselle, 87 



Saints who rose after Christ at 

Jerusalem, 542 
Satisfied in no other way, 564 
Same forces at work as anciently, 

304 
Sandy, Rev. G. M., case related 

by, in 
Satisfaction in no other way, 540 
Saturn's rings, 67 
" Saw my own body," 322 
Schrenck-Notzing, Baron von, 

384. 

Sceptics usually ignorant and in- 
experienced, 529 

Sceptics convinced, 508 

Scheme of spiritual being, 187, 

5 6 7 

Science versus religion, 505 
Science compelled to investigate, 

506 
Scientists, evidence of, 505 
Scratch on cheek, the, 120 
Second Coming of Christ, 55 
Seizing materialised figure dan- 
gerous to psychic, 351 
Seen and Unseen, 358 
Seers, official and unofficial, 553 
Sermon on the Mount must be 

lived, 563 
Seraphim, 459 
Sex of child foretold, 296 
Shadow cast by apparition, 269, 

270 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- 

nego, 459 
Shaking of buildings, 471, 485 
Shaw, Mrs, testimony re psychic 

photograph, 408 
Shepherds, the, 42 
"Ships that pass in the night," 

317 
Simultaneous phenomena m 

places wide apart, 143 
Simultaneously, voices sounding, 

3*3 

Sin, its effects, 43 

Sin, Christ's campaign against, 

43 
Sin, Christ and consequences of, 

44 r. ■ 

Sin, how Christ saves from, 47 
Singing by spirit voices, 103 



58o 



INDEX 



Singing of spirit and mortal to- 
gether, 310 

Sister, passing of my, 285 

Smedley's Reminiscences, 366 

Smoke accompanying psychic 
manifestations, 471, 473 

Solar plexus, 386 

Sounds, various, 480 

Spectroscope, the, 22 

Spencer, Herbert, 514 

Spheres, the, 66, 322 

Spirits, the seven, before the 
throne, 186 

Spirits describe the other life, 321 

Spirit control, 487 

Spirits, controlling and com- 
municating, in Old and New 
Testaments, 186, 222, 545 

" Spirit is the last thing I will 
give in to," 560 

Spirits move material objects, 
153. 270, 345, 453 

Spirit sits on lap, 345, 361 

Spirit princes, 55 

Spirits and prophets, 222 

Spirits sometimes need training 
though sinless, 344 

Spirit communion continued by 
apostles, 546 

Spirit communion lawful, 545 

Spiritual gifts, the, 187, 477, 559 

Spiritual body, the, 75, 78 

Spiritual man, the truly, 539 

Spontaneous phenomena, 133, 
180, 202, 218 

Space, unending, 23 

Spence, Miss C. E., 177 

Standfast case, the, 415 

Star's ancient theories re the, 15, 

17 

Stars, distances of, 20 
Stars, temporary or new, 22 
Stead, Miss Estelle, 180, 318 
Stead, apparition of W. T., 308, 

316, 317, 319 
Stellar photography, 21 
Stereoscopic photos of material- 
isations, 371 
Stereoscopic camera, Sir W. 

Crookes uses, 516 
Stephen, martyrdom of, 548 
Stick comes through ceiling, 469 



Stradivarius, Antonius, 295 

Subjective hallucination, futility 
of theory of, 90 

Subliminal theory, futility of, 88, 
188, 289, 315, 326, 330 

Subliminal and telepathic ex- 
planations, cases destroying 
the, 189, 229, 235, 239, 241, 
244, 246, 330 

Subliminal theory covers ignor- 
ance and saves trouble, 315 

Suicides, no, 224 

Sun, proper motion of, through 
space, 18 

Supernormal, the, 477 

Supernatural, psychic pheno- 
mena not, 477 

Suppress the evidence, fortun- 
ately prophets and apostles 
did not, 410 

Suvsum cor da, 21 

Survival, per se, not dependent 
on religion, 70 

Survival of death now scienti- 
fically proved, 531 

Suspended in the air, objects, 
268, 272, 448, 449 

Swedenborg, Emanuel, 503 

Symbol, information conveyed 
by, 227, 230, 235, 239, 242, 
246, 402, 404, 431 



Table floating in air defies a 

man's strength, 450 
Tables, levitation of, 447, 448, 

451-453 
Taylor, Mr Trail, 395, 398, 426, 

432 
Teachers, non-spiritual, 475 
Telegraphic messages, 472 
Telekinesis, 273 
Telepathy no explanation, 128, 

131, 165, 168, 292, 298, 304, 

529, 55i 

Tennant, the Hon. Edward 
Wyndham, 424 

Tennyson, 476 

Teresa, St, levitation of, 444 

Terrene affairs, interest in, con- 
tinued, 154, 183, 184, 188, 192 



INDEX 



58i 



Tertullian, 562 

Testimony, human, 328 

Tests, psychic, in the Bible, 

220 
Test materialisation, 337, 358, 

376, 377. 380, 382 
The Temptation, 557 
' ' The eternal God is thy refuge," 

565 
" The weight of evidence," 450 
Theories, anti-spiritual, 551 
There is no Death, 339 
Thomas, The Consummation of, 

490 
Thompson, Francis, 534 
Thumbs, two thumbs case, 408 
Thurston, Dr, psychic picture, 

441 
Titanic, the sinking of, 316 
Tobias Mayer, 18 
Tomczyk, Mademoiselle, 273 
Torquay case, the, 80 
Tone of voice altered by trumpet, 

312 
Touch of spiritual beings, 192, 

227, 267, 473, 482, 484, 498 
Townshend, Sir Charles, 210 
Trance, 55, 479, 488, 547-54 8 . 

552 
Transcendental Physics, Zollner's, 

460 
Transfiguration, the, 47 
"Tricks and illusions," 436 
Trivial, psychic phenomena not, 

190, 222, 225 
Trumpet voices, 312, 485 
Truth seekers, we must be, 526 
" Try the spirits," 222, 55$ 
Tweedale, Rev. Charles L., case 

of excursion, 89 
Tweedale, Rev. C. L. and Dr 

Tweedale see apparition, 92 
Tweedale, Dr Thomas, 92, 164, 

329 

Tweedale, Mary, passing of, 

237 
Tweedale, James, 258, 427 
Tweedale, Margaret E., levita- 

tion of, 453 
Tyerman's Life and Times of 

Wesley, 502 
Tyndall, 513 



U 



Unbelievers, orthodox, 459, 
475 

Uncertainty of many Christians 
as to survival, 12 

Unofficial means of communica- 
tion and the Mosaic Law, 553 

" Until I drink it new with you," 
367 

Useless to say these things don't 
happen now, 474 

Utility of spirit communica- 
tions, 186, 189, 218, 299, 318 

Urim and Thummim, 475 



V 

Valencia, Bishop of, levitation 

of, 438, 444 
Valois, Margaret de, 491 
Value of modern testimony, 564 
Vanishing (dematerialisation), 

341, 363-364, 368, 379 
Vapour, spirit figures form from 

and dissolve into, 473, 510 
Varley, Cromwell, 519 
Vault, request for inscription on, 

1.53 

Veil, materialisation, 359 
Ventriloquism not the explana- 
tion, 313 
Venus, transit of, 509 
Venzano, Dr Joseph, 373 
Vicarious sacrifice indefensible, 

45 
Viola and Oviola, 356 
Virgil's Georgics, 266 
Voice, the Spirit, Bible instances, 

479 
Voices, The, 308 
Voices, tone of, recognised, 312, 

324. 488 

W 
Waiting for loved ones, spirits, 

137. 2 35. 240 

Wallace, Alfred Russel, and 
psychic photograph, 406 

Wallace, Alfred Russel, materi- 
alisation witnessed by, 372 



5«2 



INDEX 



Wallis, Mr E. W., 231, 259, 261 
Walker, Mr, and the Smedley 

photograph, 419 
Warnings soften the blow, 230 
Warwick, experience of the Earl 

of, 241 
Webley, Mrs, apparition of her, 

singing, 102 
Weight, loss of psychic, 346 
Wesley, Rev. Samuel, Rector 

of Epworth, 497 
Wesley, Rev. John, account of 

Epworth manifestations, 472, 

497- 503 

Wesley, Rev. John, case from 
journal of, 115 

Wesley, Rev. John, on good 
angels and apparitions, 502 

Wesley, John, influence of spirit 
manifestations on, 502 

Wesley, Susannah, Emilia and 
Molly, 498 

Wesley, Emily, letter to brother 
John, 503 

Were the apostles mad or hallu- 
cinated ? 301 

Whistling, 327 

Whiteford, Mr Robert, testi- 
mony of, 399 

White robes, 382 

What is the good of it? (Cut 
bonol), 139, 455 

" Why don't I see these things ? " 
223 

Will, finding a, 190 



Williams, M. A., 348 

Wind accompanying psychic 

phenomena, 277, 462, 485 
Windridge's, Mrs, case, touching 

spirit seen, 267 
Wine probably drunk by the 

arisen Christ, 53, 367 
Wine, the water made wine, 220 
Winged figures, 148 
Wireless telegraphy, 210 
Wood, Mrs, 328 
Wordsworth, 185 
World spirit, Christ's teaching 

from the, 45, 46, 53, 567 
Wounds, Christ's (stigmata), 123 
Wounds materialised and shown, 

115, 120, 174, 424 
Wriedt, Mrs Etta, 307 
Writing, direct, 363-366 
Writing, automatic, 365, 482 
Wronged spirits, 557 
Wyllie, Mr Edward, 401, 412, 416 



" Yet out of my flesh shall I see 
God," 541 



Zacharias, 42 

Zedekiah, King, led captive, 486 
Zollner, Professor, and knot in 
endless leather band, 460 







. ?- 



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